Posted on 04/04/2008 3:51:48 PM PDT by Clive
ST-PIERRE - A militant environmental group opposed to the East Coast seal hunt was forced to flee the French islands of St-Pierre-Miquelon on Friday after angry fishermen cut the mooring lines of the group's flagship vessel.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society sparked outrage earlier this week when the group's leader, Paul Watson, said the recent deaths of three seal hunters north of Cape Breton was a tragedy, but the continued slaughter of seals "is an even greater tragedy."
On Friday, Watson's vessel, the Farley Mowat, was confronted at the wharf by two dozen residents of St-Pierre, the capital of the French territory south of Newfoundland.
Police confirmed local fishermen confronted the activists and the ship left after its lines were cut with axes.
Fisherman Carl Beaupertuis, 47, said when he heard Watson's comments about the sealers killed in a capsizing last Saturday, he was furious.
"We cut the ropes ... because the fishermen of St-Pierre don't accept what Paul Watson said," he said. "He's not allowed to come in the harbour any more. It's finished for him."
Watson later confirmed he had left St-Pierre-Miquelon after the tense confrontation.
The vessel was to return to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the annual seal hunt started last Friday. Watson said he intends to continue monitoring the hunt next week off the coast of Labrador.
Watson said a member of his crew filmed the incident at St-Pierre and he may bring a formal complaint before the French courts.
"I had the cameras rolling, so we did identify the individuals," he said.
Andre Varcin, a senior official with the French government, said it will be up to the local prosecutor's office to decide if any charges are warranted - but that doesn't seem likely.
"The prosecutor will deliver some reprimands and warnings, but I don't think there will be any convictions," he predicted.
Varcin said the islands do not intend to block Watson from returning, saying "he can return at his own risk and peril."
"But to put it simply, he knows very well he will be unwelcome, and his presence is not desired by a portion of the population."
Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has said Watson's group will be charged with allegedly getting too close to the seal hunt last weekend off the coast of Cape Breton.
Watson said he doesn't intend to dock his vessel at any Canadian harbours, adding that the Farley Mowat has enough fuel and food to last for months before returning to its home port in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, a patrol aircraft and two icebreakers searched north of Cape Breton on Friday for the body of a missing seal hunter.
The coast guard is also looking for the L'Acadien II, the trawler from Iles-de-la-Madeleine, Que., that capsized and sank last weekend with the sealer and five other hunters aboard. Two men survived the capsizing.
The search was ordered by Hearn after complaints that the coast guard had given up its search for Carl Aucoin too soon.
Later in the day, Hearn appointed a retired rear admiral of the Canadian navy to investigate the coast guard's role in sinking.
Roger Girouard will look into events leading to and following the capsizing.
Witnesses and survivors say the boat hit a truck-size chunk of ice and flipped as the icebreaker Sir William Alexander pulled the boat through the darkness.
Girouard is expected to present his final report to Hearn and the commissioner of the coast guard in the fall.
The Transportation Safety Board has said it needs to examine the 12-metre boat as part of the agency's investigation.
Once the trawler is found, Canadian Forces divers will help with the recovery, the Fisheries Department confirmed.
In Iles-de-la-Madeleine, a chain of islands north of P.E.I., many residents were to take part in a public visitation for the three men whose bodies were recovered from the boat the same day it overturned.
Funerals for captain Bruno Bourque and crew members Gilles Leblanc and Marc-Andre Deraspe are to be held Saturday.
Two seal hunters - Claude Deraspe and Bourque's son, Bruno-Pierre - survived the sinking.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Some legitimate outrage. I do not approve of breaking the law, but the expression of outrage is entirely understandable.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
It is in the business of interfereing with it by harrassing the trawler fleet and the Coast Guard and Fisheries vessels accompanying it.
Canada is 5 miles closer to France than England is.
A few pounds of explosives in a magnetic limpet below the waterline is all it would take to scuttle these rabble.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
The French were allowed to keep those islands along with its Caribbean possessions in lieu of Britain getting its continential North American possessions after the 7 Years War aka French and Indian War. To the French the value of the fishing rights for holding those islands close to the Grand Banks and the sugar from the Caribbean were more valuable than its immense holdings in Canada and Ohio and Mississippi valley.
You know, I’ve never liked the French, but they sure seem to know how to handle these Kumbiyah ships.
I learn something new nearly every day on FR.
I had to look it up!
I’m of the opinion that if these protest vessels actually interfere with the hunt or with Coast Guard traffic, then the CG should be able to board them and arrest them, confiscate the vessel, and finally deport them back to where they came from. And if they pull any silly tricks, fire on them.
Looks like the French have rediscovered their allies :-)
The Canadian Coast Guard is civil service and SAR oriented. The USCG is a military force.
Nope other way round
Saint Pierre and Miquelon to Newfoundland - 13 miles
Alderney ro Cap de la Hague - 8 miles
Me too.
I've won a couple of bets on this.
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