Seals Animal

Canada's controversial seal hunt, halted for five years by protests from animal lovers, resumed when a single Canadian ship set sail for the ice floes off Labrador, where thousands of female harp seals arrive at this time of year to give birth. However, the hunters are armed with rifles, not the clubs once used to kill the animals, and they have promised not to kill the newborn seals. Animal rights activists tried to track the ship, but heavy fog forced them to cancel their flight.

In the annals of smuggling, Los Angeles International Airport has seen it all ? lizards in luggage, songbirds strapped to a passenger's legs, boxes of tarantulas and two pygmy monkeys hidden in a traveler's pants. Now, officials said, they have recorded another milestone in the animal kingdom ? smuggled turtles. Authorities said two Japanese men were arrested with more than 50 live rare turtles, from Chinese big-headed turtles to Indian Star tortoises, packed neatly inside snack food boxes.

City officials have determined that the disposal of two dead seals that washed up on a beach should have been the state's responsibility, even though a city work crew removed the animals after a public outcry. The question over who should be responsible for the carcasses was the subject of heated debate during an April 6 City Council meeting. Several residents who attended the meeting criticized city officials for not immediately clearing away the decaying carcasses.

Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers smashed through a massive expanse of frozen ocean northeast of Newfoundland where about 100 seal hunting vessels were trapped. The hulls of about 15 vessels were in danger of being pierced, said Fisheries and Oceans Department spokesman Phil Jenkins. The guard picked up one crew that abandoned ship. The hunt has drawn widespread criticism.

Captain, the sea lion, arrived on Seal Beach in poor shape, with two deep facial gashes and a missing eye. His remaining eye was so badly infected that he was virtually blind. Basura was only slightly better off. His rescuers found Basura, which means garbage in Spanish, in a trash can at Dana Point. He too had an eye infection and respiratory troubles.

Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers smashed through a massive expanse of frozen ocean northeast of Newfoundland where about 100 seal hunting vessels were trapped. The hulls of about 15 vessels were in danger of being pierced, said Fisheries and Oceans Department spokesman Phil Jenkins. The guard picked up one crew that abandoned ship. The hunt has drawn widespread criticism.

As the children reflect on what they have just witnessed, one exclaims to another, "I'd like to be a little guy, so I could hide from everyone." It's a sentiment perhaps shared by many children at some point in their lives, and maybe even by young elephant seals here as they struggle to exist among so many large and testy adults. The fourth-graders from nearby Rio del Mar school have just seen a large blubbery male nearly squash a forlorn pup searching for its mother.

Police are investigating an alleged attack on a seal on the beach at Children's Pool in La Jolla, officials said Monday. The seal later died at Sea World. Animal advocates have complained that the City Council's recent action to remove protective barriers has led to seals being attacked. A necropsy is scheduled to determine the cause of death.

The Marine Mammal Care Center at Ft. MacArthur in San Pedro could be called an orphanage for lost baby seals and sea lions. It scoops up those disoriented pups and yearlings who have become weak from not eating and puts them back on the road to recovery. And on Sunday, at its second annual "Day of the Seal," the center will demonstrate how it gets the animals into shape for their return to the sea. At 9 a.m.

A Taiwanese businessman has called off a plan to slaughter 30,000 seal pups in South Africa for food and aphrodisiacs, the Taiwanese government and a national animal protection group have announced in San Francisco. Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that the businessman, H. Hsu, was a private entrepreneur and that the government had no jurisdiction in a South African enterprise.

Thousands fewer seals were killed in the first phase of Canada's controversial hunt compared with previous years, indicating that melting ice has depleted much of the herd in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, Fisheries Department spokesman Phil Jenkins said. About 860 seals were killed, he said. Unusually warm weather has led to the drowning of thousands of baby seals, Jenkins said. They cannot swim during the first few weeks of life.

As the children reflect on what they have just witnessed, one exclaims to another, "I'd like to be a little guy, so I could hide from everyone." It's a sentiment perhaps shared by many children at some point in their lives, and maybe even by young elephant seals here as they struggle to exist among so many large and testy adults. The fourth-graders from nearby Rio del Mar school have just seen a large blubbery male nearly squash a forlorn pup searching for its mother.

Supporters of the harbor seals that live on the beach at the Children's Pool in La Jolla won a round Tuesday in the long-running feud over whether the beach belongs to seals or humans. The San Diego City Council, at the nudging of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, voted 7 to 1 to install a rope barrier to keep people from the seals during pupping season, from Jan. 1 to May 1.

Infuriated sealers trying to fend off animal rights activists flung seal guts at an inflatable boat filled with protesters as Canada's annual hunt began on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. "They threw carcasses at our Zodiac," said Rebecca Aldworth of the Humane Society. The fishermen in the area's isolated island communities say the hunt supplements their meager winter incomes.

Canada's contentious seal hunt will start soon, despite protests by former Beatle Paul McCartney and other animal rights activists who condemn the killing of the pups as inhumane, the government said. Fisheries and Oceans Minister Loyola Hearn charged that the media had misrepresented the hunt, and said Canada was committed to ensuring the seals were killed by humane methods.

About 1,500 seal pups were swept into the sea and drowned by a tidal surge at a small island off Canada's east coast. A resident of Pictou Island described how the mother seals frantically tried to push their tiny pups back onto land as they floundered in the storm-tossed water. Gray seals in the Northumberland Strait usually give birth on pack ice that forms in winter. But abnormally warm conditions this year meant there was no ice in the strait.

European scientists are meeting in London to try to identify a disease that has killed a fifth of the seal population in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. "While governments argue over who is to blame for the current crises in the North and Baltic seas, the common seal in this area faces extinction," said Andrew Booth, a spokesman for the environmental group Greenpeace.

An animal rights group has hired a security firm to protect the seals at the Children's Pool in La Jolla, a beach where humans and seals have clashed. Six seals reportedly have been injured since the City Council voted 5 to 3 last month to remove a barrier that kept humans from approaching the animals. Three seals have died under mysterious circumstances.

Police are investigating an alleged attack on a seal on the beach at Children's Pool in La Jolla, officials said Monday. The seal later died at Sea World. Animal advocates have complained that the City Council's recent action to remove protective barriers has led to seals being attacked. A necropsy is scheduled to determine the cause of death.