by Lishita Chen
Grade 6 - Sathya Sai School of Canada (Toronto, ON, Canada)
Second Place
An endangered animal not many people would know about is the hooded seal. This marine mammal is in the list of IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) vulnerable species. I chose this animal because I thought the name hooded sounded interesting and I could learn many new things about this vulnerable animal as I write about it. The scientific name of the hooded seal is Cystophora cristata. They are called hooded seals because the males have a fleshy sac above their nostrils that they can inflate. This sac looks like a hood. The baby hooded seals have blue coats and therefore are called “blue-backs”. The hooded seal is part of the seal family. It is found on the shores of Western Europe, Eastern Canada, and Greenland; on the ice packs in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The hooded seal is endangered and threatened due to over hunting and ecosystem imbalance. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, hooded seals were intensely over hunted, especially the young pups because of their highly prized and unusual blue pelts. During the nineteenth century, the sealing industry began. Thousands of seals were hunted for their leather, oil and later on, fur. The main hunting countries were Canada and Greenland, along with Russia and Norway. In the late twentieth century, through international cooperation the hunting countries decided to make laws against seal hunting and give the seals a break from their exploitation. But even now, these seals are still illegally hunted. An imbalance is occurring in the ecosystem of the hooded seals due to climate change and global warming. A big part of their life cycle depends on pack ice, which is tightly packed ice. Due to global warming and climate change, these ice floes are melting and negatively affecting the hooded seals. Hooded seals also have to compete with commercial fisheries for food. A lot of fish and other sea animals are being fished by big commercial fisheries. Some of these creatures are a large part of the hooded seal’s diet, which means a competition between humans and seals for food. Another reason for their decreasing numbers is that they are a by-catch of commercial fishing; which means fishermen catch them accidentally while actually looking for some other marine animal (fish, prawns, etc).
In the late twentieth century, some conservation measures were put into place, such as treaties, laws, quotas, bans, and agreements. Some conservational measures that were taken internationally were treaties and agreements between countries to stop or reduce the hunting of hooded seals. Some other measures taken were laws and quotas, making hunting hooded seals illegal, or having a certain limit to how much hunting is allowed. Now, the total number of hooded seals that are allowed to be hunted per year are ten thousand in Canada. Another measure taken was that some places – such as Europe, imposed a ban on all seal pup products sold in the market.
Usually, illegal seal hunting is done for pelts, as these are prized products. I would propose a solution that makes these pelts undesirable. I would suggest using genetic engineering, we come up with a product that is harmless to the seals but renders their pelt useless once they die. The hooded seals can be injected with a substance I call “Modiseal”. “Modiseal” is a substance that will modify the seal’s pelt and make it unsuitable once dead. With this injection, seal pelts will become unusable and eventually, illegal seal hunters will stop hunting them. This injection will be harmless to the seals and its effect will be passed on from generation to generation. This type of a solution has never been proposed before, and is a new approach to protect the seals.
My proposed solution, will benefit law enforcement officers because, they won’t have to be on the lookout for illegal hooded seal hunters. The ecosystem and biodiversity in the area will benefit, because the decrease in the number of hooded seals hunted, will mean the food chains and food webs balance will be maintained. This ensures that other animals and plant species will not be negatively affected anymore by the illegal hunting of hooded seals.
The people who will be involved in implementing my solutions are: ecologists, genetic engineers (specializing in marine mammals), marine biologists, marine veterinarians, manufacturing engineers and the Canadian government. Ecologists and genetic engineers will design the product. The ecologists will study the ecosystem and monitor whether less seals are being killed and track the hooded seals so they can be injected with “Modiseal.” The genetic engineers will be the ones who will come up with the chemical composition of “Modiseal,” which can be used without harming the seal, but get passed down through generations. Manufacturing engineers will be needed to design the equipment that will produce “Modiseal.” The Canadian government will be required to approve this solution and because this is going to be done on Canadian territories and other nations as well. Marine biologists and marine veterinarians will be needed to study the patterns of seals, and to implement the plan of injecting the seals. All people involved would have to work together for this to succeed.
I foresee the funding for my proposed pelt modifier-“Modiseal”- to be coming from many different possible sources. I will approach the government, conservation agencies, environmental trusts and social entrepreneur crowd funding. There are many individuals and corporations who would like to donate and associate themselves with environmental and conservational causes that they believe in.
In conclusion, I think this plan will benefit hundreds of thousands of hooded seals. They will not be hunted as much anymore, and can have the chance to become a thriving species. This will take a fair amount of time to be done, but in the long run; will not just help the seals, but the environment as well! The food chains and food webs will be balanced and the biodiversity of ecosystems across the north Atlantic region will be greatly affected in a positive manner.
References:
Seal Conservation Society. No author available. Retrieved from http://www.pinnipeds.org/seal-information/species-information-pages/the-phocid-seals/hooded-seal. Last retrieval date January 31, 2017.
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. No author available. Retrieved from http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/6204/0. Last retrieval date January 31, 2017.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA Fisheries). No author available. Retrieved from http://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/seals/hooded-seal.html. Last retrieval date January 31, 2017.
What is By-Catch? A Cartoon Crash Course. No author available. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NklxOhr2faI&app=desktop. Last retrieval date January 31, 2017.
Hooded Seals – World’s Weirdest. No author available. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPFkmwo8DQU&app=desktop. Last retrieval date January 31, 2017.
2014 Canadian Seal Hunt Exposed. No author available. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wg8-rehVgw&app=desktop. Last retrieval date January 31, 2017.