Ahousaht hunters find sick seals

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Ahousaht Elders Frank August Senior and Edwin Frank Senior have something in common: a love for seal meat that they were raised on. Both men who have hunted in the area since childhood have noticed disturbing changes in the seals near salmon farms: the seals are sick.

"I noticed about two years after the farms got here the seals around them started getting skinnier and skinnier," observed August. "We used to just go up Tofino inlet early in the morning to get a seal but now they're too skinny and they move slow."

The last seal August caught had to be disposed of. "Its blubber was probably only a half an inch thick," he said.

Another local hunter claims to have observed a seal "puking" maggots near Ahousaht in the Obstruction Island area.

Edwin Frank, who lives in Ahousaht, reports shooting a seal in behind Meares Island near a fish farm. "I could see that it wasn't well at all," he said. "When I cleaned it I could see it had hardly any blubber at all and I had to let it go."

He went on to say there are many sick seals at Obstruction Island near Ahousaht and another salmon farm. "I can't say for sure if the fish farms are the cause for making the seals sick but I can say there are lots of sick seals there."

Friends of Clayoquot Sound spokespeople have not received reports of sick seals near salmon farms but speculate the maggots coming from a seal probably indicate it was infected with a parasite. They concur with August's theory that the seals are victims of the food chain.

According to Frank, "The seals are getting sick from eating whatever is eating the stuff under the farms."

Rather than risking the health of his family by hunting seals in sheltered inlets, Frank goes to the outside shores to hunt healthy seals.

Wildlife authorities and Pacific National Aquaculture, which operates salmon farms in the area could not be reached for comment.