SA press here is strangely silent.
As things stand right now. Namibia is clubbing in August -October 60 000, 8-month pups, or 7 out of 10 pups on these 3 mainland sealing colonies. In December another 7000 bulls get shot for their penises, plus a by-catch quota of 5000, new-born pups being driven over to collect the bulls. Plus 300 000 seals are starving and dying on the mainland each year. Namibia's fisheries is drowning, shooting, kill untold numbers.
In SA, about 40 000 seals disappear each year, drowning, starvation, net entanglement, there are only 40 000 being born on offshore islands. Kleinsee in the far north, old apartheid sealing colony on the mainland, on a De Beers mining farm, nobody knows as it is restricted. Cape Nature is shooting seals at various exclusive and banned to seals islands. Avian Demography and Cape Nature, WWF etc, want to introduce land predators to seal colonies on the mainland to kill more pups.
All in all, I estimate over 400 000 Cape Fur seals are dying every year, the last official count in 1997, showed 300 000 pups born. Namibia's population has dropped 55% since 1992.
Nothing in the press, nobody is saying anything, in fact the opposite all mainstream conservation is saying seals are thriving?????
I would love some good international investigative reporting. Francois.