More than 100 ships trapped by ice in Canada
More than 100 ships carrying commercial seal hunters for Canada's annual harvest have been trapped for days by crushing ice off the coast of Newfoundland province, Canada's Coast Guard has said.
Several mariners had to evacuate their damaged boats while icebreakers smashed through a huge expanse of packed ice to try to reach them.
"We have in excess of 100 long liners still at sea ... in very severe ice conditions," Coast Guard superintendent Brian Penney said yesterday.
A sudden shift in wind and two recent storms tightened the ice pack in the region along Newfoundland's northeast coast and southern Labrador, endangering about 100 vessels off Fogo Island.
And "conditions are getting worse all the time," said Penney.
The vessels were taking part in Canada's controversial Atlantic harp seal hunt, which was expected to cull 270,000 animals in April and May.
Demonstrators in Europe and North America have denounced the "cruelty" of seal hunting.
But Ottawa maintains the hunt poses no threat to the seal population, which has ballooned over the past three decades to almost 5.5 million, despite one million being killed in the past three years.
Up to 20 per cent of the Atlantic herd usually nests on thick ice floes in the southern Gulf of St Lawrence, but this year authorities and animal rights groups oddly found only slush and ice fragments too small to support a newborn pup.
Several mariners had to evacuate their damaged boats while icebreakers smashed through a huge expanse of packed ice to try to reach them.
"We have in excess of 100 long liners still at sea ... in very severe ice conditions," Coast Guard superintendent Brian Penney said yesterday.
A sudden shift in wind and two recent storms tightened the ice pack in the region along Newfoundland's northeast coast and southern Labrador, endangering about 100 vessels off Fogo Island.
And "conditions are getting worse all the time," said Penney.
The vessels were taking part in Canada's controversial Atlantic harp seal hunt, which was expected to cull 270,000 animals in April and May.
Demonstrators in Europe and North America have denounced the "cruelty" of seal hunting.
But Ottawa maintains the hunt poses no threat to the seal population, which has ballooned over the past three decades to almost 5.5 million, despite one million being killed in the past three years.
Up to 20 per cent of the Atlantic herd usually nests on thick ice floes in the southern Gulf of St Lawrence, but this year authorities and animal rights groups oddly found only slush and ice fragments too small to support a newborn pup.