2007-09-29
La disparition annoncée des phoques
L'autre jour, le premier ministre Stephen Harper se faisait interroger à New York au sujet de la chasse au phoque. Il avait été obligé de répondre que la chasse aux blanchons était depuis longtemps interdite (près de vingt ans) et que les phoques du Saint-Laurent n'étaient pas une espèce menacée. Décidément, il y a des journalistes qui font toujours aussi bien leurs devoirs...
Ce n'est pas d'hier qu'on s'inquiète pour les phoques et que nos voisins du sud déplorent la chasse annuelle. Dans le numéro de janvier 1875 de la revue The Popular Science Monthly, on pouvait retrouver cet entrefilet :
« The barbarous cruelties and needless wastefulness attending the seal-fishery, as now carried on, have received a check from the Newfoundland Legislature, which has passed a law preventing sealing-vessels from leaving port before a certain date, so as to give the seals at least another month after the breeding-season, in which the young may increase in size and value. The present practice is to kill the old seals indiscriminately, leaving the helpless young to perish by thousands. It is hoped that the governments of other countries will follow the example of Newfoundland. »
Mais cette mesure n'avait pas désarmé les critiques. Dans le numéro de décembre 1877, The Popular Science Monthly revenait sur la question :
« The Scandal of the Seal-Fishery. — Unless the governments of the countries which send out ships to the seal-fishery grounds speedily put some restrictions on the method now pursued, there will before long be no seals. In 1868 Dr. Robert Brown expressed his belief that, "supposing the sealing prosecuted with the same vigor as at present, before thirty years shall have passed away the seal-fishery, as a source of commercial revenue, will have come to a close." The Greenland seal-fishery is already "practically used up" and the sealers are now turning their attention to the coast of Newfoundland. A writer in Nature cites the London Daily News, to show what slaughter is made of the Newfoundland seals, and we learn that in one season four vessels secured 89,000 seals. To this add a like number of young ones left to die of starvation, and twenty per cent as many mortally wounded and lost, and the aggregate amounts to over 200,000 seals! The writer in Nature suggests this subject of the destruction of the seal as a fitting one to occupy the minds of the advocates of the anti-vivisection laws, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. »
Ces avertissements ont-ils conduit à une réglementation de la chasse de manière à la préserver jusqu'à aujourd'hui? Ou ces citations prouvent-elles au contraire qu'il a toujours été rentable d'annoncer la disparition des phoques alors que ces derniers prolifèrent avec l'enthousiasme et la ténacité d'authentiques rats aquatiques?
Ce n'est pas d'hier qu'on s'inquiète pour les phoques et que nos voisins du sud déplorent la chasse annuelle. Dans le numéro de janvier 1875 de la revue The Popular Science Monthly, on pouvait retrouver cet entrefilet :
« The barbarous cruelties and needless wastefulness attending the seal-fishery, as now carried on, have received a check from the Newfoundland Legislature, which has passed a law preventing sealing-vessels from leaving port before a certain date, so as to give the seals at least another month after the breeding-season, in which the young may increase in size and value. The present practice is to kill the old seals indiscriminately, leaving the helpless young to perish by thousands. It is hoped that the governments of other countries will follow the example of Newfoundland. »
Mais cette mesure n'avait pas désarmé les critiques. Dans le numéro de décembre 1877, The Popular Science Monthly revenait sur la question :
« The Scandal of the Seal-Fishery. — Unless the governments of the countries which send out ships to the seal-fishery grounds speedily put some restrictions on the method now pursued, there will before long be no seals. In 1868 Dr. Robert Brown expressed his belief that, "supposing the sealing prosecuted with the same vigor as at present, before thirty years shall have passed away the seal-fishery, as a source of commercial revenue, will have come to a close." The Greenland seal-fishery is already "practically used up" and the sealers are now turning their attention to the coast of Newfoundland. A writer in Nature cites the London Daily News, to show what slaughter is made of the Newfoundland seals, and we learn that in one season four vessels secured 89,000 seals. To this add a like number of young ones left to die of starvation, and twenty per cent as many mortally wounded and lost, and the aggregate amounts to over 200,000 seals! The writer in Nature suggests this subject of the destruction of the seal as a fitting one to occupy the minds of the advocates of the anti-vivisection laws, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. »
Ces avertissements ont-ils conduit à une réglementation de la chasse de manière à la préserver jusqu'à aujourd'hui? Ou ces citations prouvent-elles au contraire qu'il a toujours été rentable d'annoncer la disparition des phoques alors que ces derniers prolifèrent avec l'enthousiasme et la ténacité d'authentiques rats aquatiques?
Libellés : Canada, Futurisme, Politique
