Mounties seize the Farley Mowat (Part 1)

Stunned and angry, crew member David Jonas of the Farley Mowat complained that some of his shipmates were placed under arrest, forced to lie down on the deck, escorted to the stern of the ship and kept under armed guard. “Canada,” he said, “did not have a right to board us and bring us to Sydney." Oh-no.

On March 30, some seal hunters called for assistance from the coast guard, complaining that the 54-metre Farley Mowat was getting too close to them on the ice floes north of Cape Breton. The captain of the Cathy Erlene, the sealing vessel which called for help, said, “The arrests were long overdue.”

Nova Scotia sealer, Shane Briand, said at one point the Mowat broke the ice up beneath a sealer as he stood on a floe. Briand said the much larger Mowat harassed his ship and crew until a coast guard icebreaker arrived and put itself between the two ships.

The Canadian Fisheries Department later said its 98-metre icebreaker Des Groseilliers responded to the scene and was "grazed" twice by the Farley Mowat. The crew aboard the Mowat admitted they were told not to approach the ice-covered area where seals were being harvested, but the crew refused to comply with the order.

Officers of the Farley Mowat, a 54-metre ship operated by the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, were charged with steering the Mowat to within 900 metres of the hunt. That's an offence under Canadian fisheries regulations unless you have an observer’s permit. The Farley Mowat didn’t. The charges were announced by federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn last week, but he gave no indication how the summons would be served.

The Sea Shepherd Society, under various names, has long used militant tactics to interfere with the seal hunt. The group claims to have sunk six whaling ships since 1979, in their efforts to “protect” whales and other marine wildlife, saying no one was hurt in those actions.

On Saturday, the RCMPs' elite marine team was called in by the Minister. The armed Mounties launched their speedy Zodiacs from two coast guard vessels, boarded the Mowat and arrested her 17 man crew. The ship was seized and taken to Sydney Harbour.

Crew member Merilee Nyland, one of six who spent the night in a Sydney jail cell after refusing to submit to immigration checks, said the arrest was traumatic. "I came around a corner and all of a sudden there were three men with guns in my face," said the 23-year-old from the US.”

Er, excuse me Miss Hyland, but “all of a sudden . . .?” What did they do, jump out from behind a bush? Were the two Coast Guard vessels from which the Mounties staged their attack operating under a “cloak of invisibility?”

Those “men with guns” were police officers. They enforce Canadian law. You and your colleagues entered Canadians waters, approached a restricted area and endangered the lives of Canadians engaged in a lawful activity. Then your Captain ignored a lawful command from the Canadian Coast Guard, forcing a collision with the Des Groseilliers and further endangering Canadian lives.

Meanwhile, from the relative comfort of a New York hotel room, the president of the society, environmental crusader Paul Watson, described the seizure and arrests as an "act of war." because the vessel is registered in the Netherlands.

There’s more to the story. We’ll look at some of it in my next post.