OUR MISSION WITH GREENPEACE

We got to know and love the seals at Cape Cross very much. Many of the pictures in this chapter of different types of seals were given to me by Charlie. One subject that always upset my mother about Nature Conservation was the culling (killing) of Cape Fur Seals.  Particularly the way that the contractors killed the seals really upset her.  It really upsets me too, even today.  The worst is that seals are still killed in the same way.  And the government still does this every year, even while you’re reading this book.  Mostly baby seals are killed, as they are easier to kill.  They are hit on the head until their skulls crack.  After their skulls are seriously cracked, they stop running (well actually stop wobbling not running), they just lie there.  When there are no more seals to be clubbed,  the workers pull out their knives and stab the seals more or less where they think the heart would be.  Later the seals are collected in the back of a van and taken to the factory. There were even many times the seals would escape with their fractured skulls, and die slowly along the coast.  And what do they do with the seals, they sell some fur coats and leather boots, but they are extremely ugly coats and boots. Virtually nobody buys them.  They also boil the seals for oil.  You know what they really do; they use the oil for seal penis processing. 

That was the entire reason of their oils, to export seal penis mostly to certain countries as an aphrodisiac.  My mother felt very strongly about this and did everything she could to get support for campaigns to stop the culling. When you are young, you don’t always understand what is happening and sometimes it is very difficult.

I remember attending a meeting of the SPCA, were my mother and her friends walked out during the meeting with half the audience following her lead.  And the committee clapping as we left. I was humiliated. Years later, I now understand that they were making a point as the committee refused to take a stand on the cruelty towards the seals (I think they were afraid to lose funding from government). She also helped Greenpeace get footage of the seal culling.  My sister and I went with Charlie and two gentlemen from Greenpeace so that it could look like an innocent family visit.  We camped at a deserted house at the coast.  My mother warned me and my sister that this was a hyena area.  We didn’t care much, we wanted to see Jackals, but we would avoid the Jackals by climbing boulders.  What chance would we have against a Hyena, I can’t remember 100% but I assume we just figured we would climb some gigantic boulder again. Anyway the whole event with Greenpeace really did help, we obtained footage for the evening news.  And it was shown on international news.  Every time the news talks about seals, they ask the public under the age of 18 not to view the reports and pictures.  After that many other conservation groups including IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) descended on the seal cull and tried to put pressure on government.  Mom always felt we had to help where we could.   Some of them were not really very nice people.  We lost a lot of our personal photos that they loaned and never returned, including a large collection of snake photos.   

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