Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. Seal hunting is currently practiced in nine countries: United States (above the Arctic Circle in Alaska), Canada, Namibia, Denmark (in self-governing Greenland only), Iceland, Norway, Russia, Finland and Sweden. Most of the world's seal hunting takes place in Canada and Greenland.

The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) regulates the seal hunt in Canada. It sets quotas (total allowable catch – TAC), monitors the hunt, studies the seal population, works with the Canadian Sealers' Association to train sealers on new regulations, and promotes sealing through its website and spokespeople. The DFO set harvest quotas of over 90,000 seals in 2007; 275,000 in 2008; 280,000 in 2009; and 330,000 in 2010. The actual kills in recent years have been less than the quotas: 82,800 in 2007; 217,800 in 2008; 72,400 in 2009; and 67,000 in 2010. In 2007, Norway reported that 29,000 harp seals were killed, Russia reported that 5,479 seals were killed and Greenland reported that 90,000 seals were killed in their respective seal hunts.

Harp seal populations in the northwest Atlantic declined to approximately 2 million in the late 1960s as a result of Canada's annual kill rates, which averaged to over 291,000 from 1952 to 1970. Conservationists demanded reduced rates of killing and stronger regulations to avert the extinction of the harp seal. In 1971, the Canadian government responded by instituting a quota system. The system was competitive, with each boat catching as many seals as it could before the hunt closed, which the Department of Fisheries and Oceans did when they knew that year's quota had been reached. Because it was thought that the competitive element might cause sealers to cut corners, new regulations were introduced that limited the catch to 400 seals per day, and 2000 per boat total. A 2007 population survey conducted by the DFO estimated the population at 5.5 million.

In Greenland, hunting is done with a firearm (rifle or shotgun) and young are fully protected. This has caused some conflicts with other seal-hunting nations, as Greenland also was hit by the boycotts that often were aimed at seals (often young) killed by clubbing or similar methods, which have not been in use in Greenland. It is illegal in Canada to hunt newborn harp seals (whitecoats) and young hooded seals (bluebacks). When the seal pups begin to molt their downy white fur at the age of 12–14 days, they are called "ragged-jacket" and can be commercially hunted. After molting, the seals are called "beaters", named for the way they beat the water with their flippers. The hunt remains highly controversial, attracting significant media coverage and protests each year. Images from past hunts have become iconic symbols for conservation, animal welfare, and animal rights advocates. In 2009, Russia banned the hunting of harp seals less than one year old.

History
The term seal is used to refer to a diverse group of animals.  In science, they are grouped together in the Pinnipeds, which also includes the walrus, not popularly thought of as a seal, and not considered here.  The two main families of seals are the Otariidae (the eared seals; includes sea lions, and fur seals), and Phocidae (the earless seals); animals in the family Phocidae were sometimes referred to as hair seals, and are much more adept for a fully aquatic lifestyle than the eared seals, though they have a more difficult time getting around on land. The fur seal yields a valuable fur; the hair seal has no fur, but oil can be obtained from its fat and leather from its hide.
Seals have been used for their pelts, their flesh, and their fat, which was often used as lamp fuel, lubricants, cooking oil, a constituent of soap, the liquid base for red ochre paint, and for processing materials such as leather and jute. Pinseal was fashioned into handbags, and seal livers were an early source of insulin. Early commercial sealers discarded most of the flesh, but might save seal hearts and flippers for an evening meal.

Traditional seal hunting

Archeological evidence indicates the Native Americans and First Nations People in Canada have been hunting seals for at least 4,000 years. Traditionally, when an Inuit boy killed his first seal or caribou, a feast was held. The meat was an important source of fat, protein, vitamin A, vitamin B12 and iron, and the pelts were prized for their warmth. The Inuit diet is rich in fish, whale, and seal.

There were approximately 150,000 circumpolar Inuit in 2005 in Greenland, Alaska, Russia, and Canada. According to Kirt Ejesiak, former secretary and chief of staff to then-Premier of Nunavut, Paul Okalik and the first Inuk from Nunavut to attend Harvard, for the c. 46,000 Canadian Inuit, the seal was not "just a source of cash through fur sales, but the keystone of their culture. Although Inuit harvest and hunt many species that inhabit the desert tundra and ice platforms, the seal is their mainstay. The Inuktitut vocabulary designates specific objects made from seal bone, sinew, fat and fur used as tools, games, thread, cords, fuel, clothing, boats, and tents. There are also words referring to seasons, topography, place names, legends, and kinship relationships based on the seal. One region of Canada's north is inhabited by the Netsilingmiut, or "people of the seal." The title of Ejesiak's article acknowledged the pivotal 1991 publication entitled Animal Rights, Human Rights by George Wenzel, a McGill University geographer and anthropologist who worked more than two decades with the Clyde Inuit of Baffin Island. Wenzel's "scholarly examination" of "the impact of the animal rights movement upon the culture and economy of the Canadian Inuit" was among the first to reveal how animal rights groups, "well-meaning people in the dominant society through misunderstanding and ignorance can inflict destruction" on a vulnerable minority.

Inuit seal hunting accounts for the majority of the seal hunt, but just three percent of the hunt in southern Canada; it is excluded from the European Commission's call in 2006 for a ban on the import, export and sale of all harp and hooded seal products. Ringed seals were once the main staple for food, and have been used for clothing, boots, fuel for lamps, as delicacy, containers, igloo windows, and in harnesses for huskies. Though no longer used to this extent, ringed seals are still an important food and clothing source for the people of Nunavut. Called nayiq by the Central Alaskan Yup'ik people, the ringed seal is also hunted and eaten in Alaska.

Various seal species were also hunted in northwest Europe and the Baltic Sea at least 8,000 years ago.

Early modern era

The first commercial hunting of seals by Europeans, is said to have occurred in 1515, when a cargo of fur seal skins from Uruguay was sent to Spain for sale in the markets of Seville.

Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador and the Gulf of St. Lawrence were the first regions to experience large scale sealing. Migratory fishermen began the hunting from as early as the 1500s. Large-scale commercial seal hunting became an annual event starting in 1723 and expanded rapidly near the turn of the 18th century. Initially, the method used was to ensnare the migrating seals in nets anchored to shore installations, known as the 'landsman seal fishery'. The hunt was mainly for the procurement of seal meat as a form of sustenance for the settlements in the area, rather than for commercial gain.

From the early 18th century English hunters began to range further afield – 1723 marked the first time that hunters armed with firearms ventured forth in boats to increase their haul. This soon became a sophisticated commercial operation; the seals were transported back to England, where the seal's meat, fur, and oil were sold separately. From 1749, the import of seal oil to England was being recorded annually, and was used as lighting oil, for cooking, in the manufacture of soap and for the treating of leather.

South Atlantic
It was in the South Seas that sealing became a major enterprise from the late 18th century. Samuel Enderby, along with Alexander Champion and John St Barbe organized the first commercial expedition to the South Atlantic Ocean in 1776, initially with the primary aim of whaling, although sealing began to play a prominent part in the operation as well. More expeditions were sent in 1777 and 1778 before political and economic troubles hampered the trade for some time.

On 1 September 1788, the 270-ton ship Emilia, owned by Samuel Enderby & Sons and commanded by Captain James Shields, departed London. The ship went west around Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean to become the first ship of any nation to conduct operations in the Southern Ocean. Emilia returned to London on 12 March 1790 with a cargo of 139 tons of sperm oil.

By 1784, the British had fifteen ships in the southern fishery, all from London. By 1790 this port alone had sixty vessels employed in the trade. Between 1793 and 1799 there was an average of sixty vessels in the trade. The average increased to seventy-two in the years between 1800 and 1809.

The sealing industry extended further south to the South Georgia island, first mapped by Captain James Cook in  on 17 January 1775. During the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century, South Georgia was inhabited by English and Yankee sealers, who used to live there for considerable periods of time and sometimes overwintered. In 1778, English sealers brought back from the Island of South Georgia and the Magellan Strait area as many as 40,000 seal skins and 2,800 tons of elephant seal oil. More fur seals from the island were taken in 1786 by the English sealing vessel Lord Hawkesbury, and by 1791, 102 vessels, manned by 3,000 sealers, were hunting seals south of the equator. The first commercial visit to the South Sandwich Islands was made in 1816 by another English ship, the Ann.

The sealers pursued their trade in a most unsustainable manner, promptly reducing the fur seal population to near extermination. As a result, sealing activities on South Georgia had three marked peaks in 1786–1802, 1814–23, and 1869–1913 respectively, decreasing in between and gradually shifting to elephant seals taken for oil. Following the discovery of the South Shetland Islands in 1819, the sealing grounds were expanded to what is now the Antarctic Treaty area.

Pacific
Commercial sealing in the Australasian region appears to have started with the London-based Massachusetts-born Eber Bunker, master of the , who in November 1791 announced his intention to visit and hunt in New Zealand's Dusky Sound. Captain William Raven of the  stationed a party at Dusky from 1792 to 1793, but the discovery in 1798-1799 of Bass Strait, between mainland Australia and Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania) saw the sealers' focus shift there in 1798, when a gang including Daniel Cooper landed from the Nautilus on Cape Barren Island.

With Bass Strait over-exploited by 1802, commercial attention returned to southern New Zealand waters, where Stewart Island/Rakiura and Foveaux Strait were explored, exploited and charted from 1803 to 1804. Thereafter, the sealing-industry focus shifted to the sub-Antarctic Antipodes Islands, 1805–1807, the Auckland Islands from 1806, the southeast coast of New Zealand's South Island, Otago Harbour and Solander Island by 1809, before focusing further to the south at the newly-discovered Campbell Island (discovered in January 1810) and Macquarie Island (discovered in July 1810) from 1810. During this period sealers were active on the southern coast of mainland Australia, for example at Kangaroo Island. This whole development has been called the first sealing boom; it sparked the Sealers' War (1810–1821) in southern New Zealand.

Australasian sealing measured its output in terms of skins.

By about 1815, sealing in the Pacific had faded in importance. A brief revival occurred from 1823, but this proved very short-lived. Although highly profitable at times and affording New South Wales one of its earliest trade staples, sealing's unregulated character saw its self-destruction. Notable traders from Britain and based in Australia included Simeon Lord, Henry Kable, James Underwood and Robert Campbell. Plummers of London and the Whitneys of New York also became involved.

By 1830, most Pacific seal-stocks had been seriously depleted, and Lloyd's Register of Shipping only showed one full-time sealing vessel on its books.
In the North Pacific, the later 1800s saw large harvests of fur seals. These harvests decreased along with fur-seal populations.

Industrial era

Growing from the international Grand Banks fishery, the Newfoundland hunt initially used small schooners. Kill rates averaged 451,000 in the 1830s, and rose to 546,000 annually during the first half of the next decade, which led to a marked decline in the harp seal population that in turn adversely impacted profits in the sealing industry.

Four hundred schooners carried 13,000 Newfoundland sealers on the annual hunts of the 1850s. An annual kill of 700,000 was estimated when sealing reached its peak in Newfoundland in the 1860s, with the introduction of more powerful and reliable steamships that were capable of much larger range and storing capacity. Annual catches exceeded the 400,000 mark from the 1870s and smaller sealers were steadily pushed out of the market.

The first modern sealing ship was the SS Bear, built in Dundee, Scotland in 1874 as a steamer for sealing. The ship was custom-built for sealing out of St. John's, Newfoundland, and was the most outstanding sealing vessel of her day and the lead ship in a new generation of sealers. Heavy-built with  wooden planks, Bear was rigged as a sailing barquentine but her main power was a steam engine designed to smash deep into ice packs to reach seal herds.

At the time of her arrival in St. John's, there were 300 vessels outfitted each season to hunt seals, but most were small schooners or old sailing barques. The new sealing ships represented by Bear radically transformed the Eastern North Atlantic seal fishery as they replaced the hundreds of smaller sealing vessels owned by merchants in outports around Newfoundland with large and expensive steamships owned by large British and Newfoundland companies based in St. John's. Owned at first by the Scottish firm W. Grieve and Sons, she was acquired in 1880 by R. Steele Junior.

Another famous sealing ship of the era was the , originally built in 1884 for the Dundee whaling and sealing fleet. She was ideally suited to the polar regions and worked for 10 years in the annual seal fishery in the Labrador Sea. Large and expensive ships required major capital investments from British and Newfoundland firms, and shifted the industry from merchants in small outports to companies based in St. John's, Newfoundland. By the late 19th century, the sealing industry in Newfoundland was second in importance only to cod fishing.

The seal hunt provided critical winter wages for fishermen, but was dangerous work marked by sealing disasters that claimed hundreds of lives, such as the 1914 Newfoundland Sealing Disaster involving the , the , and SS Stephano. The rugged hulls and experienced crews of Newfoundland sealing vessels often led sealers such as Bear and Terra Nova to be hired for Arctic exploration and one sealer Algerine was hired to recover Titanic bodies in 1912. Following World War I aircraft were used to find where the herds of seals had gathered on ice sheets. After World War II, the Newfoundland hunt was dominated by large Norwegian sealing vessels until the late 20th century, when the much diminished hunt shifted to smaller motor fishing vessels, based from outports around Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2007, the commercial seal hunt dividend contributed about $6 million to the Newfoundland GDP, a fraction of the industry's former importance.

Environmental protection

The end of the 19th century was marked by the Bering Sea Controversy between the United States and Great Britain over the management of fur seal harvests. In 1867 the United States government purchased from Russia all her territorial rights in Alaska and the adjacent islands, including the Pribilof Islands, the principal breeding-grounds of the seals in those waters. By Acts of Congress, the killing of seals was strictly regulated on the Pribiloff islands and in "the waters adjacent thereto". Beginning in about 1886, it became the practice of certain British and Canadian vessels to intercept passing seals in the open ocean (over three miles from any shore) and shoot them in the water (pelagic sealing). In the summer of 1886, three British Columbian sealers, the Carolena, the Onward, and Thornton, were captured by an American revenue cutter, the Corwin. The United States claimed exclusive jurisdiction over the sealing industry in the Bering Sea; it also contended that the protection of the fur seal was an international duty, and should be secured by international arrangement. The British imperial government repudiated the claim, but was willing to negotiate on the question of international regulation.

The issue was taken to arbitration, which concluded in favour of Britain on all points in 1893. Since the decision was in favor of Great Britain, in accordance with the arbitration treaty the tribunal prescribed a series of regulations for preserving the seal herds which were to be binding upon and enforced by both powers. They limited pelagic sealing as to time, place, and manner by fixing a zone of  around the Pribilof Islands within which the seals were not to be molested at any time, and from May 1 to July 31 each year they were not to be pursued anywhere in the Bering Sea. Only licensed sailing vessels were permitted to engage in fur sealing, and the use of firearms or explosives was prohibited.

This marked the first attempt at establishing regulations on the sealing industry for environmental purposes. However, these regulations failed because the mother seals fed outside the protected area and remained vulnerable. A joint commission of scientists from Britain and the United States further considered the problem, and came to the conclusion that pelagic sealing needed to be curtailed. However, further joint tribunals did not enact new legal restrictions and, at this point, Japan also embarked upon pelagic sealing.

Finally, the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention severely curtailed the sealing industry. Signed on July 7, 1911, by the United States, Great Britain, Japan and Russia, the treaty was designed to manage the commercial harvest of fur-bearing mammals. It outlawed open-water seal hunting and acknowledged the United States' jurisdiction in managing the on-shore hunting of seals for commercial purposes. It was the first international treaty to address wildlife preservation issues.

The treaty was dissolved with the onset of hostilities between the signatories in World War II. However, the treaty set precedent for future national and international laws and treaties, including the Fur Seal Act of 1966 and the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.

Today, commercial sealing is conducted by only five nations: Canada, Greenland, Namibia, Norway, and Russia. The United States, which had been heavily involved in the sealing industry, now maintains a complete ban on the commercial hunting of marine mammals, with the exception of indigenous peoples who are allowed to hunt a small number of seals each year.

Equipment and method

In the Canadian commercial seal hunt, the majority of the hunters initiate the kill using a firearm. Ninety percent of sealers on the ice floes of the Front (east of Newfoundland), where the majority of non-native seal hunting occurs, use firearms.

An older and more traditional method of killing seals is with a hakapik: a heavy wooden club with a hammer head and metal hook on the end. The hakapik is used because of its efficiency; the animal can be killed quickly without damage to its pelt. The hammer head is used to crush the seals' thin skulls, while the hook is used to move the carcasses.
Canadian sealing regulations describe the dimensions of the clubs and the hakapiks, and caliber of the rifles and minimum bullet velocity, that can be used. They state: "Every person who strikes a seal with a club or hakapik shall strike the seal on the forehead until its skull has been crushed," and that "No person shall commence to skin or bleed a seal until the seal is dead," which occurs when it "has a glassy-eyed, staring appearance and exhibits no blinking reflex when its eye is touched while it is in a relaxed condition."
Reportedly, in one study, three out of eight times, the animal was not rendered either dead or unconscious by shooting, and the hunters would then kill the seal using a hakapik or other club of a type that is sanctioned by the governing authority.

Modern sealing

Products made from seals

Seal skins have been used by aboriginal people for millennia to make waterproof jackets and boots, and seal fur to make fur coats. Pelts account for over half the processed value of a seal, selling at over C$100 each as of 2006. According to Paul Christian Rieber, of GC Rieber AS, the difficult ice conditions and low quotas in 2006 resulted in reduced access to seal pelts, which caused the commodity price to be pushed up. One high-end fashion designer, Donatella Versace, has begun to use seal pelts, while others, such as Calvin Klein, Stella McCartney, Tommy Hilfiger, and Ralph Lauren, refrain from using any kind of fur.

Seal meat is a source of food for residents of small coastal communities. Meat is sold in the Asian pet food market; in 2004, only Taiwan and South Korea purchased seal meat from Canada. Seal blubber is used to make seal oil, marketed as a fish oil supplement. In 2001, 2% of Canada's raw seal oil was processed and sold in Canadian health stores. There has been virtually no market for seal organs since 1998.

Sealing states
In 2005, three companies exported seal skin: Rieber in Norway, Atlantic Marine in Canada and Great Greenland in Greenland. Their clients were earlier French fashion houses and fur makers in Europe, but today the fur is mainly exported to Russia and China.

Canada
In Canada, the season for the commercial hunt of harp seal is from November 15 to May 15. While Inuit hunt seals commercially year-round, most sealing in southern Canada occurs in late March in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and during the first or second week of April off Newfoundland, in an area known as the Front. This peak spring period is often mistakenly referred to as the "Canadian Seal Hunt", when in fact seal hunting also happens throughout the year all over the Canadian Arctic.

In 2003, the three-year harp seal quota granted by Fisheries and Oceans Canada was increased to a maximum of 975,000 animals per three years, with a maximum of 350,000 animals in any two consecutive years. As of 2012, the population in Canada of the Northwest Atlantic harp seals is approximately 7.3 million animals, over three times what it was in the 1970s.

Although around 70% of Canadian seals killed are taken on the Front, private monitors focus on the St. Lawrence hunt, because of its more convenient location. The 2006 St. Lawrence leg of the hunt was officially closed on April 3, 2006; sealers had already exceeded the quota by 1,000 animals. On March 26, 2007, the Newfoundland and Labrador government launched a seal hunt website to counter "misinformation about the sealing industry that is [published] by international animal rights organizations".

Warm winters in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence have led to thinner and more unstable ice there. In 2007, Canada's federal fisheries ministry reported that while the pups are born on the ice as usual, the ice floes have started to break up before the pups learn to swim, causing the pups to drown. Canada reduced the 2007 quota by 20%, because overflights showed large numbers of seal pups were lost to thin and melting ice. In southern Labrador and off Newfoundland's northeast coast, however, there was extra heavy ice in 2007, and the coast guard estimated as many as 100 vessels were trapped in ice simultaneously.

The 2010 hunt was cut short because demand for seal pelts was down. Only one local pelt buyer, NuTan Furs, offered to purchase pelts; and it committed to purchase less than 15,000 pelts. Pelt prices were about C$21/pelt in 2010, which is about twice the 2009 price and about 64% of the 2007 price. The reduced demand is attributable mainly to the 2009 ban on imports of seal products into the European Union.

The 2010 winter was unusually warm, with little ice forming in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in February and March, when harp seals give birth to their pups on ice floes. Around the Gulf, harp seals arrived in late winter to give birth on near-shore ice and even on beaches rather than on their usual whelping grounds: sturdy sea ice. Also, seal pups born elsewhere began floating to shore on small, shrinking pieces of ice. Many others stayed too far north, out of reach of all but the most determined hunters. Environment Canada, the weather forecasting agency, reported the ice was at the lowest level on record.

Regulations
The Fisheries Act established "Seal Protection Regulations" in the mid-1960s. The regulations were combined with other Canadian marine mammals regulations in 1993, to form the "Marine Mammal Regulations". In addition to describing the use of the rifle and hakapik, the regulations state every person "who fishes for seals for personal or commercial use shall land the pelt or the carcass of the seal." The commercial hunting of infant harp seals (whitecoats) and infant hooded seals (bluebacks) was banned in 1987 under pressure from animal rights groups. Now, seals may only be killed once they have started molting (from 12 to 15 days of age), as this coincides with the time when they are abandoned by their mothers.

Export
Canada's biggest market for seal pelts is Norway. Carino Limited is one of Newfoundland's largest seal pelt producers. Carino (CAnada–RIeber–NOrway) is marketing its seal pelts mainly through its parent company, GC Rieber Skinn, Bergen, Norway. Canada sold pelts to eleven countries in 2004. The next largest were Germany, Greenland, and China/Hong Kong. Other importers were Finland, Denmark, France, Greece, South Korea, and Russia. Asia remains the principal market for seal meat exports. One of Canada's market access priorities for 2002 was to "continue to press Korean authorities to obtain the necessary approvals for the sale of seal meat for human consumption in Korea." Canadian and Korean officials agreed in 2003 on specific Korean import requirements for seal meat. For 2004, only Taiwan and South Korea purchased seal meat from Canada.

Canadian seal product exports reached C$18 million in 2006. Of this, C$5.4 million went to the EU. In 2009, the European Union banned all seal imports, shrinking the market. Where pelts once sold for more than $100, they now fetch $8 to $15 each.

Greenland

Seals are abundant in Greenland with an estimated total population of 12 million, and about 82,000 harp seals, 78,000 ringed seals and a much lower number of hooded seals are killed each year (historically, a couple of other seal species were also hunted). The hunter has to have a hunting license and he/she is obliged to register all kills with the authorities. Young seals and mothers with young are fully protected.

Hunting is done with a rifle or shotgun, which by law has to be at least a .22 caliber or a 20-gauge, respectively. The most common and widespread method involves using a small boat to slowly approach a seal sitting on ice or swimming at the surface of the water, and shoot it from a distance, aiming for the head. Once shot and killed, the boat rushes up to the seal and hooks the carcass out of the water before it sinks. Another method is sometimes used in places where the sea is almost entirely covered by ice. The hunter slowly crawls forwards on the ice towards a seal, hiding behind a white screen. Once within shooting range, the seal is shot. Although the killed seal can be retrieved with the use of a snowmobile, it is illegal to use a motor vehicle (including snowmobile), plane or helicopter in the hunt itself.

Seal hunting is very important to the local societies, especially small rural villages. In 2011, there were almost 8,000 hunters, including 2,100 full-time (the remaining are often fishers–hunters), out of a total work force of 32,000 people in Greenland. The meat is usually consumed locally and the skin is also used for local clothes (for example, Greenland's National Costume contains seal skin, including in the kamiks) or sold abroad. However, exports were hard hit by international campaigns against seal pelts, starting in 1980s (to some degree also later) and often focussing on seals being killed by clubbing or similar methods (especially young, but also adults), methods that were and are not in use in Greenland. As a consequence, Greenland attempted to distance itself from places where such methods were in use. For example, Greenland banned imports of seal skin from Canada for a period in 2006, specifically citing the way seals were killed. The European Union ban on seal skins has an exemption for those that originate from subsistence hunts by Inuit or other indigenous communities and using methods where animal welfare is considered (i.e., killed using humane methods), which has allowed Greenland to continue the trade. Nevertheless, the number of skins treated for commercial sale (both local and international) has fallen considerably in recent years and by 2017 was below 25,000.

Namibia

Namibia is the only country in the Southern Hemisphere culling seals. Although the protection and the sustainable use of natural resources is part of Namibia's constitution, it claims to conduct the second largest seal hunt in the world, mainly because of the huge amount of fish seals are estimated to consume. While a government-initiated study found seal colonies consume more fish than the entire fishing industry can catch, animal protection society Seal Alert South Africa estimated less than 0.3% losses to commercial fisheries.

Hunting is done from July to November on two places, Cape Cross and Atlas Bay, and in the past at Wolf Bay. These two colonies together account for 75% of the Cape fur seal population of the country.

Cape Cross is a tourism resort and the largest Cape fur seal colony in Namibia. The Department of Tourism has stated that "Cape Cross Seal Reserve was established to protect the largest breeding colony of Cape fur seals in the world". In season, the resort is closed and sealed off during the culling in the early morning hours, journalists are not allowed to enter. Namibia's SPCA is allowed to observe the culling from 2010 onwards.

Namibia's Ministry of Fisheries announced a three-year rolling quota for the seal harvest, although different quotas per year are sometimes reported. The  quota announced was in 2009, valid until 2011. The quotas are usually not filled by the concession holders.

In 2009, an unusual bid to end seal culling in Namibia was attempted when Seal Alert tried to raise money to purchase the only buyer of Namibian seals, Australian-based Hatem Yavuz, lock, stock, and barrel for US$14.2 million. The project did not materialise. Also, the Government of Namibia offered the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) an opportunity to buy out the two sealers in Namibia to finally end the culling. The offer was rejected.

In 2011, South African activists launched a boycott of Namibian tourism and Namibian products in response to the cull.

Norway

The Norwegian sealing season runs from January to September. The hunt involves "seal catching" by seagoing sealing boats on the Arctic ice shelf, and "seal hunting" on the coast and islands of mainland Norway. The latter is carried out by small groups of licensed hunters shooting seals from land and using small boats to retrieve the catch.

In 2005, Norway allowed foreign nationals to take part in the hunt. In 2006, 17,037 seals (including 13,390 harp and 3,647 hooded seals) were killed. In 2007, the Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs stated up to 13.5 million Norwegian krone (about US$2.6 million) would be given in funding to vessels in the 2007 Norwegian seal hunt.

Regulations
All Norwegian sealing vessels are required to carry a qualified veterinary inspector on board. Norwegian sealers are required to pass a shooting test each year before the season starts, using the same weapon and ammunition as they would on the ice. Likewise, they have to pass a hakapik test.

Adult seals more than one year old must be shot in the head with expanding bullets, and cannot be clubbed to death. The hakapik shall be used to ensure the animal is dead. This is done by crushing the skull of the shot adult seal with the short end of the hakapik, before the long spike is thrust deep into the animal's brain. The seal is then bled by making an incision from its jaw to the end of its sternum. The killing and bleeding must be done on the ice, and live animals may never be brought on board the ship. Young seals may be killed using just the hakapik, but only in the aforementioned manner, i.e., they need not be shot.

Seals in the water and seals with young may not be killed, and the use of traps, artificial lighting, airplanes, or helicopters is forbidden.

The hakapik may only be used by certified seal-catchers (fangstmenn) operating in the pack ice of the Arctic Ocean and not by coastal seal hunters. All coastal seal hunters must be pre-approved by the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries and have to pass a large game hunting test.

In 2007, the European Food Safety Agency confirmed the animals are put to death faster and more humanely in the Norwegian sealing than in large game hunting on land.

Export
In Norway in 2004, only Rieber worked with sealskin and seal oil. In 2001, the biggest producer of raw seal oil was Canada (two percent of the raw oil was processed and sold in Canadian health stores). Rieber had the majority of all distribution of raw seal oil in the world market, but there was no demand for seal oil. From 1995 to 2005, Rieber annually received between 2 and 3 million Norwegian krone in subsidy. A 2003–2004 parliamentary report says CG Rieber Skinn is the only company in the world that delivers skin from bluebacks. Most of the skins processed by Rieber have been imported from abroad, mainly from Canada. Only a small portion is from the Norwegian hunt. Of the processed skin, five percent is sold in Norway; the rest is exported to the Russian and Asian markets.

Fortuna Oils AS (established in 2004) is a 100% owned subsidiary of GC Rieber. They get the majority of their raw oil imported from Newfoundland. They also have access to raw oil from the Norwegian hunt.

Russia
The Russian seal hunt has not been well monitored since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The quota in 1998 was 35,000 animals. Reportedly, many whitecoat pups are not properly killed and are transported, while injured, to processing areas. In January 2000, a bill to ban seal hunting was passed by the Russian parliament by 273 votes to 1, but was vetoed by President Vladimir Putin.

On 21 September 2007 in Arkhangelsk, the Norwegian GC Rieber Skinn AS proposed a joint Russian–Norwegian seal hunting project. The campaign was carried out from one hunt boat supplied by GS Rieber Skinn AS in 2007, lasted two weeks, and brought in 40 000 roubles per Russian hunter. GS Rieber skinn AS declared a plan to order 20 boats and donate them to the Pomor. CG Rieber Skinn AS, in 2007, established a daughter company in Arkhangelsk, called GC Rieber Skinn Pomor'e Lic. (GC Rieber Skinn Pomorje).

The Norwegian company Polardrift AS, in 2007, had plans to establish a company in Russia, and operate under Russian flag, in close cooperation with GC Rieber Skinn Pomor'e.

Plans for the 2008 season included both helicopter-based hunts, mainly to take whitecoats, and boat-based hunts, mainly targeting beaters.

On 18 March 2009, Russia's Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology, Yuriy Trutnev, announced a complete ban on the hunting of harp seals younger than one year of age in the White Sea.

Sealing debate
Canada has become the center of the sealing debate because of the comparatively large size of its hunt.

Cruelty to animals
According to a 2002 peer-reviewed study done by five Canadian veterinarians and funded by the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA), "the large majority of seals taken during this hunt (at best, 98% in work reported here) are killed in an acceptably humane manner." These veterinarians found, "During the 2001 season in the Gulf, three (1.9%) of 158 seals brought on board of the sealing vessels and directly observed by Daoust had not been killed, and in one (0.86%) of 116 interactions between seals and sealers observed on videotapes by Daoust and Crook, the seal also did not appear to have been killed before being hooked and brought on board." They thus concluded, "This small proportion of animals that are not killed efficiently justifies continued attention to this industry's activities, preferably by members of the veterinary profession, who are best equipped to assess the humaneness of the killing methods."

In observing four videos taken during the 2001 seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the authors of this report state, "A large proportion (87%) of the sealers recorded on the four videotapes failed to palpate the skull or check the corneal reflex before proceeding to hook or bleed the seal or go to another seal."

The Royal Commission on Seals and the Sealing Industry in Canada, also known as the Malouf Commission, concluded in a 1986 report, "Judged by the criteria of rapidity of unconsciousness and particularly the absence of preslaughter stress, the clubbing of seal pups is, when properly performed, at least as humane as, and often more humane than, the killing methods used in commercial slaughterhouses, which are accepted by a majority of the public."

According to the (DFO), "The Marine Mammal Regulations stipulate that seals must be harvested quickly using only high-powered rifles, shotguns firing slugs, clubs or hakapiks.

However, the International Fund for Animal Welfare conducted a study that disputed these findings. This report concludes the Canadian commercial seal hunt results in considerable and unacceptable suffering.

The veterinarians examined 76 seal carcasses and found that in 17% of the cases, there were no detectable lesions of the skull, leading them to conclude the clubbing likely did not result in loss of consciousness. In 25% of the remaining cases, the carcasses had minimal to moderate skull fractures, indicative of a "decreased level of consciousness", but probably not unconsciousness. The remaining 58% of the carcasses examined showed extensive skull fractures.

This veterinary study included examination of video footage of 179 seals hunted in 1998, 1999, and 2000. In these videos, 96 seals were shot, 56 were shot and then clubbed or gaffed, 19 were clubbed or gaffed, and 8 were killed by unknown means. In 79% of these cases, sealers did not check the corneal reflex to ensure that the seals were dead prior to hooking or skinning them. In only 6% of these cases, seals were bled immediately, where struck. The average time from initial strike to bleeding was 66 seconds.

In 2005, IFAW published a comparison of the CVMA-funded study and its own study. In this critique, David M. Lavigne, Science Advisor to IFAW, writes, "The Burdon et al. evidence cited above addresses the question of whether seals were likely conscious or unconscious at the time they were skinned, using post-mortem examination of skulls. In marked contrast, the figure cited from Daoust et al.'s report represents the number of seals clubbed or shot that were brought on board sealing vessels while still conscious. That number ignores any and all animal suffering that occurs between the time animals are clubbed or shot until they eventually reach a sealing vessel, usually on the end of a hook or gaff." Another difference between these reports is "Daoust et al.'s direct observations were made under very different conditions than those provided by Burdon et al. Unlike Burdon et al.'s observations, they were made directly from sealing vessels so that the sealers were unavoidably aware that observers were present. As Daoust et al. (p 692) admit, the presence of an observer on a sealing vessel "may have incited sealers to hit the seals skulls more vigorously". Of course, the presence of an observer also has the potential to modify other sealing practices, including checking for a corneal reflex and bleeding animals immediately after clubbing."

In 2005, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) commissioned the Independent Veterinarians Working Group Report. With reference to video evidence, the report states: "Perception of the seal hunt seems to be based largely on emotion, and on visual images that are often difficult even for experienced observers to interpret with certainty. While a hakapik strike on the skull of a seal appears brutal, it is humane if it achieves rapid, irreversible loss of consciousness leading to death."

Ecological feasibility
In 2013, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans conducted a population survey. The resulting estimate of the harp seal population was 7.3 million animals, over three times what it was in the 1970s. In 2004, the population estimate was similar: 5.9 million (95% CI 4.6 million to 7.2 million).

Prior to the arrival of European settlers, a much larger population of harp seals migrated to the waters off Newfoundland and Labrador. Settlers began exploiting the population, with kills peaking in the middle of the 1800s. In the first half of the 1840s, 546,000 seals were killed annually. This led to a population decline that adversely affected the industry.

In the 1950s and 1960s an average of over 291,000 seal pups were killed each year. This led to a population decline to less than 2 million seals. Conservationists became alarmed and demanded controls on kill rates. Thus in 1971, Canada instituted a quota system. In the years from 1971 to 1982, an average of 165,627 seals were killed.

In 1983, the European Union banned the import of whitecoat harp seal pup pelts (pelts from pups less than about two weeks of age, when the pups molt). As a result, the market for pelts dropped. The kill rates thus declined in subsequent years to an average of about 52,000 seals from 1983 to 1995. During this time, the harp seal population increased.

After the European Union's ban on whitecoat pelt imports, the Canadian government and sealing industry developed markets for the pelts of beaters. In 1996, the kill rates again increased to over 200,000 each year, except in the year 2000. In 2002 and 2004 to 2006, over 300,000 seal pups were killed each year.

As a result of population concerns, Norway's seal hunt is now controlled by quotas based on recommendations from International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), However, sealing in Norway has declined in recent years, and the quotas have not been reached.

In addition to hunting pressures on the population of harp seals, as ice seals that are dependent on solid sea ice for whelping, the harp seal population is affected by global climate change. The lack of sea ice in recent years has resulted in the drowning deaths of tens of thousands of newborn harp seal pups.

Objections to fur

Animal welfare advocates and organizations, such as PETA, object to the use of real fur when many synthetic "faux fur" alternatives are available.

Economic impact
According to Canadian authorities, the value of the 2004 seal harvest was C$16.5 million, which significantly contributes to seal manufacturing companies, and for several thousand fishermen and First Nations peoples. For some sealers, they claim, proceeds from the hunt make up a third of their annual income. Critics, however, say this represents only a tiny fraction of the C$600-million Newfoundland fishing industry. Sealing opponents also say $16.5 million is insignificant, compared to the funding required to regulate and subsidize the hunt. For 1995 and 1996, there are confirmed reports Fisheries and Oceans Canada encouraged maximum utilization of harvested seals through a $0.20 per pound meat subsidy. The level of subsidy totaled $650,000 in 1997, $440,000 in 1998 and $250,000 in 1999. There were no meat subsidies in 2000. Some critics, such as the McCartneys (see below), have suggested promoting that area as an ecotourism site would be far more lucrative than the annual harvest.

As a culling method
In March 2005, Greenpeace asked the DFO to "dispel the myth that seals are hampering the recovery of cod stocks." In doing so, they implied the seal hunt is, at least in part, a cull designed to increase cod stocks. Cod fishing has traditionally been a key part of the Atlantic fishery, and an important part of the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador. Fisheries and Oceans Canada responded there is no connection between the annual seal harvest and the cod fishery, and that the seal hunt is "established on sound conservation principles."

Public opinion
Internationally, opposition to the seal hunt is comparable to abhorrence about the treatment of animals in other cultural-economic practices such as bull fighting, fox hunts and whaling. Within Canada, public opinion is relative to Canadians' geographic proximity to communities with a historical tradition of participating in the seal hunt, and opposition is higher in urban centres outside of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Protests

Many animal protection groups encourage people to petition against the harvest. Respect for Animals and Humane Society International believe the hunt will be ended only by the financial pressure of a boycott of Canadian seafood. In 2005, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) called for such a boycott in the United States.

Protesters frequently use images of whitecoats, despite Canada's ban on the commercial hunting of suckling pups. The HSUS explains this by saying images of the legally hunted ragged jackets are nearly indistinguishable from those of whitecoats. Also, they state, according to official DFO kill reports, 97% percent of the estimated million harp seals killed in the last four years have been under three months old, and the majority of these are less than one month old.

On 26 March 2006, seven anti-sealing activists were arrested in the Gulf of St. Lawrence for violating the terms of their observer permits. By law, observers must maintain a ten-meter distance between themselves and the sealers. Five of the protesters were later acquitted. In the same month, as part of a counterprotest, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams encouraged people in the province to boycott Costco after the retailer decided to stop carrying seal oil capsules. Costco stated politics played no role in their decision to remove the capsules, and on April 4 that year, they were again being sold in Costco stores.

In 2009, the European Union passed a law banning the promotion of imported seal products. The law was approved by the Council of the European Union without debate on 27 July 2009. Denmark, Romania, and Austria abstained. The Canadian government responded to the move by stating that it will take the European Union to the World Trade Organization if the ban does not exempt Canada. Canadian Inuit from the territory of Nunavut have opposed the ban and lobbied European Parliament members against it. Canadian seal hunting issues had been spotlighted in the months leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics which were held in Vancouver.

Inuit impact
An important distinction between the southern Canadian seal hunt and the Inuit Canadian hunt is that Canadian Inuit typically hunt ringed seals, while the southern Canadian hunt targets the pelt of the harp seal. Greenlandic Inuit hunt and eat both ringed and harp seals. Protests surrounding the southern seal hunt in Canada have historically impacted Canadian and Greenlandic Inuit.  Because of the impact of protest, profits surrounding the Inuit hunting of ringed seal fall with any ban on any type of seal product, regardless of exemption. For example, in 1963, prices for high-quality pelts of ringed seals could reach above $20.00 each; these same pelts in 1967, the year of the first major protests, would only sell for $2.50 each, which impacted Inuit in many areas. Protests in other years have resulted in similar decreases in price.

Celebrity involvement

Numerous celebrities have opposed the commercial seal hunt. Rex Murphy has reported celebrities have aided anti-hunt activists since the mid-20th century; Yvette Mimieux and Loretta Swit were recruited to attract the attention of international gossip magazines. Other celebrities who have aligned themselves against the hunt include Richard Dean Anderson, Kim Basinger, Juliette Binoche, Paul McCartney, Heather Mills, Pamela Anderson, Martin Sheen, Pierce Brosnan, Morrissey, Paris Hilton, Robert Kennedy, Jr., Rutger Hauer, Brigitte Bardot, Ed Begley, Jr., Farley Mowat, Linda Blair, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Jackie Evancho.

In March 2006, Brigitte Bardot traveled to Ottawa to protest the hunt, though the prime minister turned down her request for a meeting. During the same month, Paul and Heather Mills McCartney toured the Gulf of Saint Lawrence's sealing grounds, and spoke out against the seal hunt, including as guests on Larry King Live, where the two debated with Danny Williams, the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.

In 1978, marine ecologist Jacques Cousteau criticized the seal hunt protest: "The harp seal question is entirely emotional. We have to be logical. We have to aim our activity first to the endangered species. Those who are moved by the plight of the harp seal could also be moved by the plight of the pig – the way they are slaughtered is horrible."

Media
 Alethea Arnaquq-Baril's documentary Angry Inuk details the relationship between seal hunting, Inuit poverty, and the consequences of international trade bans.
 Rudyard Kipling's The White Seal, part of The Jungle Book, describes seal hunting from the seals' point of view, with the central character being a white seal seeking for his seals a safe haven from hunters.
 Jack London's novel The Sea Wolf takes place aboard "the schooner Ghost, bound seal-hunting for Japan" circa 1893.
 Robert Cushman Murphy's book of letters Logbook for Grace describes the expedition of the sealer Daisy in 1912 to South Georgia Island, and includes many details about the brutal elephant seal fishery there.
 Seal clubbers are a class that player characters can choose in the browser-based RPG Kingdom of Loathing.
 The topi enemy in the NES game Ice Climber is a seal in the Japanese version, however it was changed into a yeti in North American and European versions because of concerns over seal hunting references.

See also
 Bladder Festival
 Friends of Animals
 Kayak angst
 The Viking (1931 film)

References

External links

 "Canada seal cull gets underway", BBC News.
 Transcript of a Larry King Interview with The McCartneys and Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams
 "Who will defend the seal-clubbers?", Boris Johnson, The Daily Telegraph.
 "Cute, cuddly, edible: Defending Canada's seal hunters", The Economist, 2 June 2008
 Logbooks of the "Erme" Schooner, 1912–1916 at Dartmouth College Library
 Logbooks of the Snowdrop (Ship) and Eclipse (Ship) at Dartmouth College Library

Animal culling
Animal rights
Cruelty to animals
Environmental controversies
Sealing
Pinnipeds
Marine occupations
Fur trade

Seal hunting


Chingünjav (, ; also known as Admiral Chingün (, 1710–1757) was the Khalkha prince ruler of the Khotogoids and one of the two major leaders of the 1756-57 rebellion in Outer Mongolia. Although his rebellion failed, he is nowadays often hailed as a fighter for Outer Mongolia's independence from the Manchu-led Qing dynasty of China.

Early life and career

Chingünjav was born in 1710 at the shore of lake Sangiin Dalai nuur, in the Khotgoid's Erdenedüüregch vangiin khoshuu of Zasagt Khan aimag, or today's Bürentogtokh sum of Khövsgöl aimag. His father Bandi was the khoshuu's Zasag Noyon. In 1738, Chingünjav succeeded his father. Chingünjav made a career in the Manchu military and eventually reached the rank of an assistant general of Zasagt Khan aimag.

Conspiracy with Amursana

During the 1755 Manchu campaign against the Dzungar Khanate, Chingünjav and Amursana conspired to start a rebellion in autumn of the same year. However, their seniors discovered their plans and separated them. Chingünjav was sent to fight in Uriankhai, and Amursana was summoned to Beijing for demanding too big a share of the Dzungar Khanate. On the way, his escort let him escape. This led to the trial and execution of the commander of the escort, a brother of the Jebtsundamba Khutugtu and direct descendant of Chingis Khan, in early 1756, an event that gravely disturbed the Khalkha nobility.

Rebellion

In the summer of 1756, Chingunjav began his rebellion by leaving his post, gathering troops in his home area, and sending a letter to the Qianlong Emperor. However, although there was widespread unrest throughout Khalkha, support from other nobles and even from the 2nd Jebtsundamba Khutughtu was not forthcoming, and Chingünjav never managed to command more than 1,000-2,000 troops. By the time the Manchu were able to reinforce their loyal Outer Mongolian troops with detachments from Inner Mongolia, Chingünjav had achieved little more than spending time by waiting for an answer for his appeals to the nobility and the Jebtsundamba, and consequently was not able to face the Manchu in an open battle. He retreated northward towards the Darkhad area, with his force continuously shrinking through desertions. When he was captured at a place now known as Wang Tolgoi, about  from Khankh, in January 1757, all but fifty of his men had left him.

Aftermath

Chingünjav, together with almost his whole family, was brought to Beijing and executed. The Manchu, although not as brutal as they had been towards the Dzungars, sent punitive units to Mongolia to deal on the spot with all those rebels they could find. Nobles that were suspected of having sympathized with Chingünjav were also executed. The Jebtsundamba Khutugtu "died" in 1758, the Tüsheet Khan shortly afterwards. The Qianlong Emperor declared that all future incarnations of the Jebtsundamba Khutugtu were to be found in Tibet to undermine local autonomy. On the other hand, the Mongolian debts to Chinese trading firms were partially annulled, and the rest being paid for by the emperor, in order to tackle the economic sources of the unrest in Khalkha.

Legacy
Although never having had a realistic chance to succeed, Chingünjav passed into the realm of folklore. A small monument has been raised at remains of a fort attributed to him, some kilometres south of Bürentogtokh, in 1978. A statue of him was erected in Mörön in 1992 and another one in 2010. In 2012, Mongolian Bronze Foundry created a monument in his honor in Ulaanbaatar, inscribed, "May our government and our children live prosperous and eternal".

Literature

Charles R. Bawden, The Modern History of the Mongols, London 1968, p. 114 - 134

References

External links
C. Kaplonski: Collective Memory and the Chingunjav Rebellion

Mongolia under Qing rule
Qing dynasty rebels
People from Khövsgöl Province
1710 births
1757 deaths
Mongolian military personnel

Chingünjav


The Siberian grouse (Falcipennis falcipennis), also known as Siberian spruce grouse, Amur grouse, or Asian spruce grouse, is a short, rotund forest-dwelling grouse. A sedentary, non-migratory bird, it is the only member of the genus Falcipennis. The spruce grouse of North America, which physically looks similar, is now placed in the monotypic genus Canachites.

Description
Adults measure around . Males weigh at , while females weigh . Both sexes are intricately speckled white on the belly, flanks, and undertail coverts with white streaks on the wing coverts and rump, plus a white terminal band at the tail tip. Males have sooty brownish-grey feathers with a ruff around its neck and a black bib outlined in white with red skin above each eye. Females are more pale brown in color and lack the distinct facial markings of the male.

Distribution and habitat
The Siberian grouse is distributed across eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East in the federal districts of Primorsky Krai, Khabarovsk Krai, Amur Oblast, and Sakhalin. A small population formerly inhabited the far northeast of China, where they are probably now extinct. They prefer moist, shady coniferous forests (especially in the winter) with a dense understory of moss and berry bushes, including stands of Ezo spruce, Korean pine, Khingan fir, and Dahurian larch, as well as mixed forest communities interspersed with open glades. Grouse may switch to cranberry and other berries and leaves of Vaccinium, Empetrum, Rubus and other shrubs in their diet during the summer and fall months. They gather in small flocks numbering up to 10-11 birds in the autumn, especially when made up of females and subadult males. In winter, they roost in snow burrows, though they also sleep high in trees during milder weather.

Behaviour
Males assert their territory every spring by flicking their tails and erecting their neck feathers. Other courtship performances include a soft trilling coo ascending in pitch, followed by jumping and twirling twice while wing-clapping midair. Females may visit the display grounds between late April and mid May. Males older than 3 years do most of the copulations. The nest is built as a simple sink on the dirt floor lined with sticks and pine needles. 6-12 tawny-buff eggs with dark rusty spots laid in the nest are incubated for about 23–24 days.

Conservation
The Siberian grouse is classified as Globally Near Threatened by Birdlife International due to loss of habitat caused by increased illegal exploitation of forests, overhunting, and forest fires. Thus, the Siberian grouse can serve as an indicator species that reflects the health of the Amur forests in Far East Russia. Conservation efforts are essential to reduce the risk to this species.

Ecology
The Siberian grouse's ecology and life history is being further examined with captive individuals at the Karasuk Research Station by the Institute of Systematics & Ecology of Animals in Novosibirsk, Russia. Their breeding program seeks to learn in-depth about their natural behaviors and analyze threats to its natural ranges and propagate affected populations by releasing acclimated birds whenever necessary. Siberian grouse are generally quite difficult game birds to raise in a captive environment since their requirements are often complicated. Several attempts have been made to maintain and successfully breed this arboreal grouse elsewhere in Russia and abroad. One cause is their vulnerability to disease that affects wild and domestic birds alike, given how frigid the Russian taiga drops to during winter inhibits germs and pathogens from reproducing. Their dietary needs are inherently specialized as well, considering they naturally eat conifer needles and berries for most of the year. They also seem to show little to no fear of human presence. Instead of flying off when approached, they tend to freeze and/or resume normal activity even when approached a close distance.

Researcher Alexander Andreev observed the effect of predation pressure on Siberian spruce grouse in the winter, especially by owls, as they tend to avoid landing on snow at daytime and resorted to other safety precautions to minimize as much noise when moving. Andreev also found that the Siberian grouse dispersed when night falls to avoid predation and flocked during the day to socialize.

References

External links
 Siberian Grouse and its relatives
 The Siberian Grouse in the Amur region of East Siberia
 Siberian Grouse · Falcipennis falcipennis · (Hartlaub, 1855)
 Siberian Grouse (Falcipennis falcipennis)

Birds of North Asia
Siberian grouse
Tetraonini

Siberian grouse


David Law (born 7 September 1973) is a British sports broadcaster. He primarily commentates on tennis for BBC Radio Five Live and BT Sport. He also presents The Tennis Podcast.

Education
Law was educated at Blue Coat School, Walsall, followed by University of Loughborough. He then studied journalism at Cornwall College.

Life and career
He worked as a communications manager for the ATP World Tour between 1998 and 2001.

Since 2002, he has been a reporter and commentator on tennis for BBC Radio 5 Live, commentating at the Australian Open, US Open and Wimbledon. In the 2013 US Open final, he described a 54-stroke rally between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

He has presented The Tennis Podcast with Catherine Whitaker since 2012.

He has commentated on television on the WTA Tour for BT Sport since 2013.

As well as broadcasting, he has worked in the media department at the Queen's Club Championships since 1996, and became the tournament's Media Director in 2009.

He supports West Bromwich Albion, and is responsible for turning the tennis player Goran Ivanisevic into a fan of the club. In 2011, he took Ivanisevic to his first WBA match at Loftus Road, home of Queen's Park Rangers. In 2013, he took Ivanisevic to WBA's home ground, The Hawthorns, for a match against Manchester City.

References

External links

 The Tennis Podcast

1973 births
Living people

David Law (broadcaster)


Gannit Ankori (Hebrew: גנית אנקורי) is an Israeli art historian.  She is Professor of Fine Arts and Chair in Israeli Art at the Department of Fine Arts at Brandeis University.  She was previously chair of the Department of Art History at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Ankori studies gender studies, Palestinian art, and the art of the  Jewish diaspora.

Ankori is regarded as a "champion" of Palestinian art and has devoted two decades of her career to the study of Palestinian art  which she views as a continuous artistic tradition before and after the Nakba of 1948.
Her sister is the actress Gilat Ankori.

Books
She has published extensively in the fields of Mexican, Palestinian, and Israeli art, as well as feminist cultural studies. Her articles have been printed in Hebrew, Arabic, French, German, and English.

 Palestinian art,  Reaktion Books, 2006
 Imaging her selves: Frida Kahlo's poetics of identity and fragmentation,  Greenwood Press, 2002
 The Fractured Self: Identity and Fragmentation in the Art of Frida Kahlo,'' 1994

Articles

 Yocheved Weinfeld's portraits of the self, Gannit Ankori, (Woman's Art Journal, vol. 10 no.2, 1989)

References

Israeli art historians
Living people
Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Brandeis University faculty
Year of birth missing (living people)
Women art historians
21st-century Israeli women
20th-century Israeli women
Israeli women academics

Gannit Ankori


The Crosswicks Creek Site III is a historical archaeological site in the vicinity of Bordentown in Burlington County and Hamilton Township in Mercer County, New Jersey. It encompasses the remains of Revolutionary War-era ships that were sunk in Crosswicks Creek in 1778. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 26, 1990, for its significance in military and maritime history.

History
Many Continental ships were trapped in the Delaware River watershed above Philadelphia following the capture of that city by the British Army in 1777. Prior to departing the city in 1778, the British staged a raid to destroy ships that Continental and state forces had secreted in various waterways on May 8. A significant number of these were located in and around Bordentown, with two known to have been scuttled in Crosswicks Creek. These two wrecks were discovered by an historical archaeological survey in 1984.

See also
 Abbott Farm Historic District – also an archaeological site

References

External links

Bordentown, New Jersey
Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey
National Register of Historic Places in Burlington County, New Jersey
National Register of Historic Places in Mercer County, New Jersey
New Jersey Register of Historic Places
Shipwrecks on the National Register of Historic Places in New Jersey
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in New Jersey

Crosswicks Creek Site III


Nikolai Ramm Østgaard (30 October 1885 – 20 June 1958), sometimes referred to as N. R. Østgaard, was a Norwegian military officer, aide-de-camp for Olav V of Norway, and sports official who is best known as President of the International Ski Federation (FIS) from 1934 to 1951.

Early and personal life
He was born in Kristiania as a son of merchant Einar Østgaard (1857–1907) and Karen Betzy Bredesen (1858–1938), and grandson of the writer Nikolai Ramm Østgaard. In July 1916 he married Ragni Gullichsen (1894–1956). One of their daughters married Erling Welle-Strand. He was the father of architect Rolf Ramm Østgaard.

He finished his secondary education in 1904 and graduated as a premier lieutenant from the Norwegian Military Academy in 1908. From 1908 to 1913 he taught physical education and mathematics in Kristiania, while he spent several winters as a ski coach in Central Europe.

Sports career and royal service
In 1914 he became the personal trainer of Crown Prince Olav of Norway, by recommendation of his employer at school, Sigurd Halling. Østgaard was promoted to aide-de-camp for the Crown Prince in 1924, from the 1930s also with the administrative responsibility for the farm Skaugum. Also, his wife became mistress of the robes for the Crown Princess.

Østgaard was himself an able ski jumper and Nordic combined skier, and won three Norwegian football cups with his club SFK Lyn in 1908, 1910 and 1911. He chaired SFK Lyn from 1911 to 1912, and also Kristiania Skiing District Association (1909–1910) and the Norwegian Ski Federation (1927–1930). While serving in the latter position he became vice president of the International Ski Federation (1928–1934), later serving as president from 1934 to 1951. He was proclaimed honorary president upon backing down.

In the military Østgaard was promoted to captain in 1921, major in 1935 and lieutenant colonel in 1940. During the Norwegian campaign which followed the German invasion of Norway in April 1940, Østgaard served with the royal family in their flight northwards and then to the United Kingdom. He also followed the Crown Prince on his travels to North America. He was promoted to head aide-de-camp for the Crown Prince in 1945, from 1 January 1958 for the King of Norway as Olav was crowned as such. Østgaard held the rank of colonel from 1946. He also issued a book on Crown Princess Märtha of Norway in 1955 and edited a book on King Olav in 1957. Nikolai's son Einar (1929–2012) wrote two accounts on the royal family's flight in 1940; Reisen hun ikke ønsket (2005) and Kongen i krig (2009).

Østgaard was a Knight, Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav (1957); Commander, First Class of the Order of the Dannebrog; Commander, Second Class of the Order of Vasa and the Order of the White Rose of Finland; Officer of the Order of the Crown; Knight, First Class of the Order of the Sword, and Knight of the Legion of Honour, the Order of the Polar Star, the Order of Polonia Restituta and the Order of the White Lion. He also held the Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria in gold, the King's Medal of Merit in gold, the Haakon VII 25th Anniversary Medal and the King George VI Coronation Medal.

References

1885 births
1958 deaths
Writers from Oslo
Norwegian Military Academy alumni
Norwegian schoolteachers
Norwegian male Nordic combined skiers
Norwegian men's footballers
Lyn Fotball players
Norwegian sports coaches
Norwegian sports executives and administrators
International Ski and Snowboard Federation executives
Norwegian Army personnel of World War II
Norwegian expatriates in the United Kingdom
Commanders of the Order of the Dannebrog
Commanders of the Order of Vasa
Officers of the Order of the Crown (Belgium)
Knights First Class of the Order of the Sword
Knights of the Legion of Honour
Knights of the Order of the Polar Star
Knights of the Order of Polonia Restituta
Recipients of the King's Medal of Merit in gold
Recipients of the Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria
Men's association football players not categorized by position

Nikolai Ramm Østgaard


Harald Ganzinger (31 October 1950, Werneck – 3 June 2004, Saarbrücken) was a German computer scientist who together with Leo Bachmair developed the superposition calculus, which is (as of 2007) used in most of the state-of-the-art automated theorem provers for first-order logic.

He received his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Munich in 1978. Before 1991 he was a Professor of Computer Science at University of Dortmund. Then he joined the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science in Saarbrücken shortly after it was founded in 1991. Until 2004 he was the Director of the Programming Logics department of the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science and honorary professor at Saarland University. His research group created the SPASS automated theorem prover.

He received the Herbrand Award in 2004 (posthumous) for his important contributions to automated theorem proving.

References

Rewrite-Based Equational Theorem Proving with Selection and Simplification, Leo Bachmair and Harald Ganzinger, Journal of Logic and Computation 3(4), 1994.

External links
Personal Homepage of Harald Ganzinger — Version of Dec.7th, 2013 saved at archive.org

1950 births
2004 deaths
Automated theorem proving
German computer scientists
Technical University of Munich alumni
Academic staff of the Technical University of Dortmund
Max Planck Institute for Informatics
Max Planck Institute directors

Harald Ganzinger


Dāsbodh, loosely meaning "advice to the disciple" in Marathi, is a 17th-century bhakti (devotion) and jnana (insight) spiritual text. It was orally narrated by the saint Samarth Ramdas to his disciple, Kalyan Swami. The Dāsbodh provides readers with spiritual guidance on matters such as devotion and acquiring knowledge. Besides this, it also helps in answering queries related to day-to-day life and how to find solutions to it.

Background
The Dāsbodha was written in 1654 by Samarth Ramdas Swāmi (1608-1681), a satguru, a Hindu saint from Maharashtra, in the local Marathi language. It is a comprehensive volume in verse form providing instructions on the religious life, presented in the format of a conversation between a Guru and disciple. The narration is believed to have taken place in a cave called Shivthar Ghal (pronounced shiv-ther-gaal) in the Raigad district of Maharashtra.

Style
Dāsbodh is written in the verse form known as owi (ōvyā) in Marathi. The volume comprises 7751 owi and is divided into 20 chapters, each chapter consisting of ten sub-chapters. Each of these sub-chapters varies in the number of stanzas, but averages around 30-40 stanzas (ovi) per sub-chapter, with some being considerably longer.

Chapters:

 Hymns in praise
 Signs of fools
 Assessment of Self attributes
 Nine stages of communion
 Sacred formula of Almighty
 Search for God
 Fourteen Brahmas
 Chapter on Knowledge and Illusion
 Attributes and Forms
 Life flame of the world
 In the name of world
 Prudence and Renunciation
 Name and Form
 Uninterrupted meditation
 Soul
 Sun and Dynasty
 Creation and Creator
 Multifacted
 Teaching
 Complete-whole

Contents
Dāsbodh prescribes the path of devotion to God or "Bhakti mārg", and the path of Knowledge or "Jñana Marg" for liberation. Through knowledge, Ramdas clears away all doubts and gives the understanding of one's "True Self". Ramdas also reveals the true meaning and significance of "Discrimination" and "Detachment".

It deals with diverse aspects of human life such as politics, conducting business dealings and taking care of one's body and family life. One of the key messages given by Saint Ramdas is to not be lazy, as he always encouraged aspirants to earn the livelihood in a virtuous manner. The person who is ready to work will always be fortunate. Common man normally does not want to work and expects everything from God without an effort.

In Dasbodh, Samartha Ramdas presents the essence of many Vedic texts. Dasbodh is a manual for life, in the highest sense, and is somewhat unusual among spiritual literature in that it not only expounds the classic themes of discrimination between the true and the untrue and the detachment commonly found in Vedic literature, but also provides a detailed instruction on how to function and excel in society from a place of deep spiritual understanding.

Contained within the chapters of Dasbodh, Ramdas outlines the path of liberation through Devotion and Knowledge. Through knowledge, Ramdas clears away all doubts and gives the understanding of one's "True Self." Ramdas also reveals the true meaning and significance of "Discrimination" and "Detachment." Entire volumes could be written in trying to describe all that is contained within the text. It draws upon ancient Vedic texts including, but not limited to; The Vedas, the Shashtras, the Upanishads, the Avadhut Gita, the Bhagavad Gita, the Rama Gita, the Yogavasishtha, the Guru Gita, and the Brahma Sutras, to name a few. Mainly what is presented in Dasbodh is the voice of direct experience itself.

Dasbodha is an epic written by Shree Samarth. Whatever he wanted to tell the world he has conveyed through Dasbodha in a candid manner. As per the tradition in his times he wrote it in the Owi form. The contents of the book are simple, straightforward and easy to understand. It is so simple that sometimes it seems to be a prose. Dasbodha is divided in 20 main parts called as Dashak each of which contains 10 sub parts which are called as Samasas. The total Owis number 7751. Each Owi is made up of 4 lines. After being blessed by Lord Ram he wrote the Old Dasbodha. One finds the freshness, fearlessness and candidness of a person blessed with the ultimate knowledge just recently in it. After a while he started with the continuation of the work and completed up to the 7th Dashak to which he added the Dashak he had written earlier, called the Dashak of knowledge. Then throughout his life he continued writing for the Dasbodha which amounted to another 12 Dashaks. These were added to the earlier 8 ones and the final volume of the Dasbodha as we know it now was prepared just 2 months prior to the time when Shree Samarth left his mortal body. At the end of the book he has unassumingly asked the readers to study, ponder over, introspect and not just only read the whole Dasbodha.

Popularity
Dāsbodh has been popular for many years in India. Only recently has it begun to receive recognition in the West. Dāsbodh is recommended by the Inchegeri Sampradaya, including Shri Siddharameshwar Maharaj.

Translations
Dāsbodh has been translated into many Indian and other languages including German, English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Gujrathi and Sindhi.

 Sanskrit
 Hindi (four different authors (Chitrashala press Poona copy, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai, copy, Hindi Sahitya Kutir, Banaras copy and Quills Ink))

 Telugu (Sundaraiyya vidnyan kendram copy and Vedavyas Mudraksharshala chittur copy)
 Kannada
 Tamil
 Sindhi
 English (four different authors)

References

External links

 An English translation of the Dāsbodh (PDF) http://www.sadgurubhagwanshreedharswamimaharaj.com/Dāsbodh.pdf
 Online library containing Dāsbodh in various languages and other literature by Samarth Ramdas Swami
 Shri Dasbodh of Shri Samartha Ramdas (Original Marathi) - Free Download at archive.org
 Ranjit Maharaj tells about the use of the  Dasbodh
 Inchegiri Navnath Sadguru Ramakant Maharaj, Ranjit Maharaj, Nisargadatta, Siddharameshwar Talk on enormous value of Dasbodh (Telegram Channel dedicated to Masters)

Hindu texts
1654 books
17th-century Indian books
Advait Mat
Advaita
Marathi-language literature
Books about spirituality
Inchegeri Sampradaya

Dasbodh


Harold Thompson Mann (December 1, 1942 – April 4, 2019) was an American swimmer. He competed at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. At that Olympic Games, he won a gold medal for swimming the lead-off backstroke leg for the winning U.S. team in the 4 x 100-meter medley relay. He and his relay teammates Bill Craig (breaststroke), Fred Schmidt (butterfly) and Steve Clark set a new world record of 3:58.4. Mann also set an individual world record in the 100-meter backstroke swimming his leg (59.6 seconds). He was born in Norfolk, Virginia.

Mann died on April 4, 2019, at the age of 76.

References

Other websites

 Thompson Mann  at Sports-Reference.com

1942 births
2019 deaths
American Olympic gold medalists
American swimmers
People from Norfolk, Virginia
Sportspeople from Virginia

Thompson Mann


Student Edge is an Australian student advocacy service, founded in 2003 in Perth, Western Australia by university students. The organisation currently has approximately 1,100,000 members.

History

Founding
Student Edge claims to offer Australians participating in secondary, tertiary education and apprenticeships/traineeships to register for Student Edge membership and take advantage of discounts, free job and internship search boards, career tips and well-being services. While it began with a $20 subscription cost as its initial business model, the model was upturned in 2006/2007, making the membership, as well as access to its exclusive deals and competitions, free. The company now relies on advertising and sponsorship for its revenue. Following this move, its membership flourished with major brands such as Apple, McDonald's, Boost Juice and Bankwest - along with numerous Government agencies - coming on board to sponsor the company. The rise in popularity led to the company's national launch in August 2010.

National Launch
On 27 August 2010, following a celebration at the State library of Western Australia, the company opened its membership to students across Australia. This roll-out increased the number of affiliated major brands, as well as the overall membership offering. By the end of 2011, Student Edge had 500,000 cardholders, making it the largest student member benefits organisation in the country and as of 2018, the company has more than 1,000,000 members nationwide.

Collaborations With Schools
Student Edge's outreach team makes more than 100 visits to schools per year, educating students on social media responsibility and offering career tips. In 2014, Student Edge launched their annual Teacher of the Year competition, awarding NSW's Sefton High School history teacher Thomas Elley the inaugural prize.

YouthInsight
On 23 May, Student Edge's full-service market research arm YouthInsight unveiled Australia's inaugural Top 100 Youth Brands report at the Youth Marketing Australia conference in Melbourne. Based on a survey of more than 2,000 young people, YouTube was named the #1 brand among Australian youths. YouTube was also #1 in the Social Media and Apps category. Other category winners included Netflix (Entertainment), Google (Digital and Technology), Commonwealth Bank (Finance), McDonald's (Fast Food & Restaurants), Dove (toiletries) (Health & Beauty) and Woolworths Supermarkets (Retail & Online Retail).

References

External links

Youth empowerment organizations
Student organisations in Australia

Student Edge


The terpenoids, also known as isoprenoids, are a class of naturally occurring organic chemicals derived from the 5-carbon compound isoprene and its derivatives called terpenes, diterpenes, etc.  While sometimes used interchangeably with "terpenes", terpenoids contain additional functional groups, usually containing oxygen. When combined with the hydrocarbon terpenes, terpenoids comprise about 80,000 compounds. They are the largest class of plant secondary metabolites, representing about 60% of known natural products.  Many terpenoids have substantial pharmacological bioactivity and are therefore of interest to medicinal chemists.

Plant terpenoids are used for their aromatic qualities and play a role in traditional herbal remedies. Terpenoids contribute to the scent of eucalyptus, the flavors of cinnamon, cloves, and ginger, the yellow color in sunflowers, and the red color in tomatoes. Well-known terpenoids include citral, menthol, camphor, salvinorin A in the plant Salvia divinorum, ginkgolide and bilobalide found in Ginkgo biloba and the cannabinoids found in cannabis. The provitamin beta carotene is a terpene derivative called a carotenoid.

The steroids and sterols in animals are biologically produced from terpenoid precursors. Sometimes terpenoids are added to proteins, e.g., to enhance their attachment to the cell membrane; this is known as isoprenylation. Terpenoids play a role in plant defense as prophylaxis against pathogens and attractants for the predators of herbivores.

Structure and classification
Terpenoids are modified terpenes, wherein methyl groups have been moved or removed, or oxygen atoms added. Some authors use the term "terpene" more broadly, to include the terpenoids. Just like terpenes, the terpenoids can be classified according to the number of isoprene units that comprise the parent terpene:

Terpenoids can also be classified according to the type and number of cyclic structures they contain: linear, acyclic, monocyclic, bicyclic, tricyclic, tetracyclic, pentacyclic, or macrocyclic. The Salkowski test can be used to identify the presence of terpenoids.

Biosynthesis

Terpenoids, at least those containing an alcohol functional group, often arise by hydrolysis of carbocationic intermediates produced from geranyl pyrophosphate.  Analogously hydrolysis of intermediates from farnesyl pyrophosphate gives sesquiterpenoids, and hydrolysis of intermediates from geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate gives diterpenoids, etc.

See also
 List of antioxidants in food
 List of phytochemicals in food
 Nutrition
 Phytochemistry
 Secondary metabolites

References

External links
IUPAC definition of terpenoids

Plant communication

cs:Izoprenoidy
es:Terpenoides
it:Terpeni

Terpenoid


Carlo Vecce  (born 1959) is Professor of Italian Literature in the University of Naples "L'Orientale", he taught also in the University of Pavia (School of Palaeography and Musical Philology, Cremona), the D'Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara and the University of Macerata. Abroad he was visiting professor at Paris 3 (Sorbonne Nouvelle) (2001) and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) (2009).

He received his doctorate at the Catholic University of Milan with a dissertation directed by Giuseppe Billanovich, his researches focused on Renaissance Literature and Civilization in Italy and Europe, mainly in the history of intellectual workshops in the dawn of Modern Age, and in relationships between languages (literature and visual culture). Among his authors: Iacopo Sannazaro, Pietro Bembo, Lorenzo Valla, Erasmo da Rotterdam, Girolamo Aleandro, Antonio De Ferrariis detto Galateo.

Under the guide of Carlo Pedretti, he worked on the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci, publishing the Book on Painting (Codex Urbinas, 1995) and of Codex Arundel (London, British Library, 1998). He published also an anthology of Leonardo's Writings (1992), and a biography Leonardo  translated in several languages (1998, new ed. 2006). In 1994 he was appointed as a member of "Commissione Vinciana".

He collaborated to the exhibitions of Leonardo's drawings and manuscripts at Louvre (Paris, 2003) and Metropolitan Museum (New York, 2003), and to the exhibitions on Michelangelo at Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna, 1999) and Pietro Bembo (Padova, 2013). He organized the exhibition of Leonardo's drawings from Codex Atlanticus in Ambrosian Library about Fables and tales (Milan, 2013). Under the patronage of UNESCO, he organized also the international conference I mondi di Leonardo (Milan, 2002).

Among his creative publications, the poems Feuilles (Bruxelles, 1983), the dialogue Coblas. Il mistero delle sei stanze (with Alessandro Fo and Claudio Vela) (Milano, Scheiwiller, 1986), and the poem Viaggio in Québec ("Caffé Michelangiolo", a. XIV, n. 2, maggio-agosto 2009, pp. 24–26); Other composition for theatre: La luna capovolta. Sogni di Girolamo Cardano (first performance: Macerata, 2002), Compagne di classe (adapted from Scuola normale femminile by Matilde Serao; first performance: Napoli, Liceo Fonseca, 2011), and Umbra profunda. Frammenti della giovinezza di Giordano Bruno (Ginevra, 2013).

Selected publications

References

Living people
1959 births
Academic staff of the University of Pavia
Academic staff of the University of Macerata
Academic staff of the D'Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore alumni

Carlo Vecce


Halina Wawzyniak (born 17 July 1973) is a German politician of The Left who served as a member of the Bundestag from 2009 to 2017. She was federal co-deputy leader of The Left from 2008 to 2012.

Early life and education
Wawzyniak graduated from high school in 1992 and studied law at the Free University of Berlin. After the second state examination in 2002, she worked as an independent lawyer until 2005. From 2005 to 2009 she worked as a legal advisor for The Left's parliamentary group in the Bundestag.

Political career
Wawzyniak joined the Party of Democratic Socialism in August 1990 at the age of 17. She co-founded the Young Comrades Working Group (AGJG), which was replaced in 1999 by Left Youth Solid.

In the late 1990s she became a member of the PDS party executive. In the 2001 Berlin state election, she ran as a direct candidate for the PDS in Kreuzberg, but was not elected. During the 2002 federal election, Wawzyniak was head of the PDS election campaign office in Berlin. In 2003, she was a member of the commission which drafted the PDS federal platform. In December 2005, Wawzyniak was elected deputy chair of the Berlin branch of the PDS.

Alongside others such as Bodo Ramelow and Dietmar Bartsch, Wawzyniak helped organise the merger of the PDS and WASG to create The Left party. Wawzyniak was particularly responsible for legal aspects of the merger. She was subsequently elected to the federal executive at the new party's first congress in 2007. In the same year, she became chair of the party association in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, which she remained until 2011. At the 2008 federal congress, she was elected one of The Left's deputy chairpersons.

In the 2009 federal election, Wawzyniak ran as a direct candidate in Berlin-Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg – Prenzlauer Berg East, challenging incumbent Green MdB Hans-Christian Ströbele. Wawzyniak placed second with 17.6% of votes, and was elected to the Bundestag via the state party list. She became spokeswoman for digital policy in the party's parliamentary group, as well as chair of the Internet and Digital Society Inquiry Commission, and deputy chair of the legal committee.

In the 2013 federal election, Wawzyniak was re-elected to the Bundestag, placing fifth on the party's state list. She subsequently served as one of seven parliamentary directors of The Left group. She did not run for re-election in the 2017 federal election.

Since 2018, she has been parliamentary group manager for The Left group in the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin.

References

1973 births
Living people
People from Königs Wusterhausen
The Left (Germany) politicians
Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany) politicians
21st-century German politicians
21st-century German women politicians

Halina Wawzyniak