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3 seal hunters killed in boat-towing accident

Charmaine Noronha Associated Press

TORONTO – A disabled fishing trawler getting a tow from a Canadian coast guard vessel slammed into a piece of ice and capsized Saturday in the icy waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, killing three seal hunters and leaving one missing.

The vessel was headed toward a large seal herd in the Cabot Strait between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland as part of the seal hunt season that opened Friday, the largest marine mammal hunt in the world.

The tragedy came as the seal hunting industry finds itself under pressure from animal rights activists. Activists from the Humane Society of the United States and the International Fund for Animal Welfare were using helicopters to monitor the hunt’s opening day.

The 40-foot fishing boat from Iles-de-la-Madeleine in Quebec, carrying a crew of six, reported steering problems late Friday north of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, when the coast guard ship took it in tow.

Bruno-Pierre Bourque, whose father died in Saturday’s accident, and who was also aboard, said a combination of speed and inattention by the coast guard crew caused the fishing boat to flip over.

Federal officials holding a news conference Saturday in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, said they couldn’t comment on the speed of the vessel.

Canada’s Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

Iles-de-la-Madeleine Mayor Joel Arseneau identified the dead as Bruno Bourque, the boat’s owner and captain; Gilles Leblanc, a hunter in his 50s; and Marc-Andre Deraspe, a hunter in his early 20s. The missing hunter was identified as Carl Aucoin.

“We’re certainly in a state of shock here on the islands,” Arseneau said Saturday of the tightly knit community of about 13,000 on Iles-de-la-Madeleine, a dozen islands about 50 miles north of Prince Edward Island’s eastern tip.

Later Saturday, the Canadian military said it had safely rescued seven sealers from another ship when their wooden vessel was abandoned when it began taking on water. The men were being transported home to the Iles-De-La-Madeleine in a Canadian Forces helicopter.