Sealicide

Stalking Halichoerus grypus

A bizarre and motley flotilla played tag last week in the frigid northern waters off Britain's Orkney Islands. Leading the chase was the 120-ft, red-and-white-hulled vessel Kvitungen, carrying six expert Norwegian seal hunters to and fro between half a dozen uninhabited islands. Snapping at their heels was the 500-ton trawler Rainbow Warrior, crewed by 14 militant ecologists. Bringing up the rear were three boatloads of eager journalists, with reinforcements overhead in helicopters and light aircraft. At stake in the curious nautical exercise were the lives of some 6,000 generally inoffensive members of the species Halichoerus grypus, commonly known as the gray seal.

Normally the British government goes out of its way to safeguard gray seals, of which 100,000 are known to exist worldwide. About 14,500 of these have breeding grounds in the Orkneys, and they have been on Britain's protected species list since 1914. Lately, however, British fishermen have complained that the voracious mammals have been eating too much of the depleted whitefish and salmon stocks in North Atlantic waters. The government's Scottish Office, with headquarters in Edinburgh, agreed with the fishermen that the seal herd must be thinned out. It called on the Norwegians, armed with 7.62 mm Mauser rifles and 4-ft. pickax bludgeons known as hakapiks, to dispatch 900 mother seals and 1,700 fluffy white pups in the first phase of the culling program. Local hunters have been licensed to kill 3,200 more pups.

The decision drew howls from environmentalists, politicians and some local Orkney residents. Liberal M.P. Jo Grimond, who represents the islands at Westminster, called on Secretary of State for Scotland Bruce Millan to ask if the slaughter was really necessary. The U.N.-backed International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources added its own objection. In Edinburgh, anonymous protesters threw bricks through the glass storefronts of five companies selling hunting equipment.

The most serious challenge to the hunt came from an environmental organization called Greenpeace, led by David McTaggart, 47. A veteran of the annual seal-hunting protests in his native Canada, McTaggart six years ago sailed a wooden ketch into the South Pacific in a futile attempt to halt a French atomic bomb test. This time he vowed to keep a cordon of conservationists between the Norwegians and their prey. Said McTaggart: "There is no way they can stop us, short of sending in the police."

The odd naval engagement began not far from Scapa Flow, traditional wartime port of the British navy. Whenever the Norwegians headed for land in their squat, diesel-powered skiff, crewmen from the Rainbow Warrior in inflatable boats powered by 50-h.p. outboards began darting across their path. Orcadian volunteers pitched tents on the breeding-ground islands, ready to frighten the seals into the water at the approach of the hunters.

At week's end the score in the peekaboo hunting match stood at seals and conservationists 1, hunters 0; frustrated by thick fogs and the energetic efforts of the environmentalists, the Norwegian seal hunters had withdrawn farther offshore, possibly waiting for the public hue and cry to die down before making another attempt at sealicide.

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