Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:41:05.519Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The relative effectiveness of two expanding bullet designs in young harp seals (Pagophilus groenlandicus): A randomised controlled field study in the Norwegian harp seal hunt

Part of: AWF Wild Animal Welfare

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

KA Ryeng  and
SE Larsen
KA Ryeng*
Affiliation:
Institute of Marine Research, Fram Centre, PO Box 6606, Langnes, NO-9296 TromsØ, Norway
SE Larsen
Affiliation:
Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Production Animal Clinical Sciences, Oslo, Norway
*
* Contact for correspondence: kathrine.ryeng@hi.no
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relative effectiveness of a rapidly expanding Bonded hunting bullet and an explosively expanding Varmint bullet in young harp seals (Pagophilus groenlandicus). The study was conducted as an open, controlled and randomised parallel-group designed field trial. The animals were pre-randomised (1:1) into one explosively expanding (Varmint) and one expanding (Bonded) bullet type group, with 75 animals in each. The study sample consisted of young, weaned harp seals, 2-7 weeks of age, of both sexes, from the Greenland Sea harp seal population. The study was conducted during the regular hunt. Instantaneous death rate (IDR) and time to death (TTD) were the main variables. The observed IDR was 84% in both bullet groups. Correcting for Weather Condition Index, the IDR for the Varmint bullet was significantly higher compared to the Bonded. The mean TTD was shortest in the Varmint group, but the difference did not reach significance. Compared to the Bonded, a significantly higher total cranial damage score and bleeding intensity, and significantly lower frequencies of bullet exit wounds were detected in the Varmint group. The post mortem reflex movements caused by the Varmint bullet were significantly more powerful with longer duration and higher frequencies of clonic contractions. In conclusion, the results indicate a higher effectiveness of the Varmint bullet relative to the Bonded. The Varmint bullet may thus improve animal welfare in the hunt of young harp seals.

Keywords

animal welfareharp sealhuntinstantaneous death raterifle bullet designtime to death
Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Welfare , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , May 2021 , pp. 155 - 167
Copyright
© 2021 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

References

Agresti, A 2013 Categorical Data Analysis, Categorical Data Analysis, Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, USAGoogle Scholar
Altman, DG 1991 Practical Statistic for Medical Research. Chapman and Hall: London, UKGoogle Scholar
American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) 2013 AVMA Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals pp 102. https://www.avma.org/KB/Policies/Documents/euthanasia.pdfGoogle Scholar
Anonymous 2003 Regulations of November 2, 2003 No 151 relating to the conduct of seal hunting in the West Ice and East Ice. Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries: Oslo, Norway. https://lovdata.no/dokument/SF/forskrift/2003-02-11-151Google Scholar
Daoust, P-Y and Caraguel, C 2012 The Canadian harp seal hunt: observations on the effectiveness of procedures to avoid poor ani-mal welfare outcomes. Animal Welfare 21: 445–455. https://doi.org/10.7120/09627286.21.4.445CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daoust, P-Y, Caraguel, C, Fenton, H, Hammill, MO, Roy, LD and Spears, J 2012 Assessment of current and alternative methods for killing young grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) during commercial harvest p 29. Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat Research Document 2012/132. http://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/Library/349641.pdfGoogle Scholar
Daoust, P-Y and Cattet, M 2004 Consideration of use of the .22 cal-iber rimfire Winchester magnum cartridge for instant killing of young harp seals (Pagophilus groenlandicus) pp 37. Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat Research Document 2004/072. http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/CSAS/Csas/DocREC/2004/RES2004_072_B.pdfGoogle Scholar
Daoust, P-Y, Crook, A, Bollinger, TK, Campbell, KG and Wong, J 2002 Animal welfare and the harp seal hunt in Atlantic Canada. Canadian Veterinary Journal 43: 687–694. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC339547/Google ScholarPubMed
DiMaio, VJM 2016 Introduction to the classification of gunshot wounds. In: DiMaio, VJM (ed) Gunshot Wounds. Practical Aspects of Firearms, Ballistics, and Forensic Techniques, Third Edition pp 57–107. CRC Press: Boca Raton, USAGoogle Scholar
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) 2007 Animal wel-fare aspects of the killing and skinning of seals. Scientific Opinion of the Panel on Animal Health and Welfare. The EFSA Journal 610:1–122. https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2007.610Google Scholar
Fackler, ML 1996 Gunshot wound review. Annals of Emergency Medicine 28: 194–203. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0196-0644(96)70062-8CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Finnie, JW 2016 Forensic pathology of traumatic brain injury. Veterinary Pathology 53: 962–978. https://doi.org/10.1177/0300985815612155CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hampton, JO 2017 Animal welfare for wild herbivore management. PhD Thesis, Murdoch University, Australia. http://researchrepos-itory.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/38031Google Scholar
Hampton, JO, Cowled, BD, Perry, AL, Miller, CJ, Jones, B and Hart, Q 2014 Quantitative Analysis of animal-welfare out-comes in helicopter shooting: A case study with feral dromedary camels (Camelus dromedarius). Wildlife Research 41: 127–135. https://doi.org/10.1071/WR13216CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hampton, JO, Edwards, GP, Cowled, BD, Forsyth, DM, Hyndman, TH, Perry, AL, Miller, CJ, Adams, PJ and Collins, T 2017 Assessment of animal welfare for helicopter shooting of feral horses. Wildlife Research 44: 97–105. https://doi.org/10.1071/WR16173CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hampton, JO and Forsyth, DM 2016 An assessment of animal welfare for the culling of peri-urban kangaroos. Wildlife Research 43: 261–266. https://doi.org/10.1071/WR16023CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hampton, JO, Forsyth, DM, Mackenzie, DI and Stuart, IG 2015 A simple quantitative method for assessing animal welfare outcomes in terrestrial wildlife shooting: The European rabbit as a case study. Animal Welfare 24: 307–317. https://doi.org/10.7120/09627286.24.3.307CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kazim, SF, Shamim, MS, Tahir, MZ, Enam, SA and Waheed, S 2011 Management of penetrating brain injury. Journal of Emergencies, Trauma, and Shock 4(3): 395–402. https://doi.org/10.4103/0974-2700.83871Google ScholarPubMed
Kleinbaum, DG, Kupper, LL, Muller, KE and Nizam, A 1998 Applied Regression Analysis and Other Multivariable Methods, Applied Regression Analysis and Other Multivariable Methods, Duxbury Press: Pacific Grove, USAGoogle Scholar
Kneubuehl, BP, Coupland, RM, Rothschild, MA and Thali, MJ 2011 Wound Ballistics. Basics and Applications, Third Edition. Springer: Berlin, Germany. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20356-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knudsen, SK 2005 A review of the criteria used to assess insen-sibility and death in hunted whales compared to other species. The Veterinary Journal 169: 42–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tvjl.2004.02.007CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Knudsen, SK & ⊘en, EO 2003 Blast-induced neurotrauma in whales. Neuroscience Research 46: 377–386. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-0102(03)00101-9CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, ET and Wang, JW 2003 Statistical Methods for Survival Data Analysis, Third Edition. Wiley & Sons: New Jersey, USA. https://doi.org/10.1002/0471458546CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lydersen, C and Kovacs, KM 1995 Paralysis as a defence response to threatening stimuli in harp seals (Phoca groenlandica). Canadian Journal of Zoology 73: 486–492. https://doi.org/10.1139/z95-055CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maiden, N 2009 Ballistics reviews: mechanisms of bullet wound trauma. Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology 5(3): 204–209. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-009-9096-6CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Massaro, PP 2017 Factors affecting the bullet in flight. In: Massaro, PP (ed) Big Book of Ballistics pp 100–111. Gun Digest Books: Iola, Wisconsin, USAGoogle Scholar
Mörner, T, Malmsten, J, Bernodt, K and Lunneryd, SG 2013 A study on the effect of different rifle calibres in euthanisation of grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) in seal traps in the Baltic Sea. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 55(1): 79. https://doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-55-79CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO) 2001 Report from the workshop on marine mammals: Weapons, ammu-nition and ballistics pp 29. NAMMCO: Sandefjord, Norway. http://nammco.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Report-of-the-Workshop-on-Marine-Mammals-Weapons-Ammunition-and-Ballistics-2001.pdfGoogle Scholar
North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMM-CO) 2009 Report of the NAMMCO expert group meeting on best practices in the hunting and killing of seals pp 30. NAMMCO: Copenhagen, Denmark. http://nammco.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/nammco-report-expert-group-on-best-practises-in-hunting-and-killing-of-seals.pdfGoogle Scholar
North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO) 2015 Report of the expert group meeting on assessing time to death from large whale hunts pp 47. NAMMCO: Copenhagen, Denmark. http://nammco.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/report-of-expert-group-meeting-on-ttd-data-for-large-whales.pdfGoogle Scholar
Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety (VKM) 2007 Animal welfare aspects of the killing and skinning in the Norwegian seal hunt pp 72. Opinion of the Panel on Animal Health and Welfare. VKM Report 40, Oslo, Norway. https://vkm.no/download/18.645b840415d03a2fe8f122c7/1516970180676/Scientific%20Opinion%20on%20animal%20welfare%20aspects%20of%20the%20killing%20and%20skinning%20in%20the%20Norwegian%20seal%20hunt.pdfGoogle Scholar
⊘en, EO and Knudsen, SK 2007 Euthanasia of whales: the effect of .375 and .458 calibre round-nosed full metal-jacketed rifle bul-lets on the central nervous system of the common minke whale. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management 9(1): 81–88Google Scholar
⊘en, EO, Pellas, S and Storm, A 2007 Shooting trials on dead seals to examine the killing potentials of different rifle ammunition when used for seals. Report to the NAMMCO Committee on Hunting Methods. https://nammco.no/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/shooting-trials-final-report.pdfGoogle Scholar
⊘ritsland, T and ⊘ien, N 1995 Aerial surveys of harp and hood-ed seal pups in the Greenland Sea pack ice. In: Blix AS, Walløe L and Ulltang ⊘ (eds) Whales, Seals, Fish and Man pp 77–87. Elsevier Science BV: Amsterdam, The Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-6995(06)80012-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sergeant, DE 1991 Harp seals, man and ice. Canadian Special Publication of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 114: 1–153Google Scholar
Stewart, RE and Lavigne, DM 1980 Neonatal growth of north-west Atlantic harp seals. Pagophilus groenlandicus. Journal of Mammalogy 61: 670–680. https://doi.org/10.2307/1380312CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Terlouw, C, Bourguet, C and Deiss, V 2016 Consciousness, unconsciousness and death in the context of slaughter. Part I. Neurobiological mechanisms underlying stunning and killing. Meat Science 118: 133–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meatsci.2016.03.011CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Verhoeven, MT, Gerritzen, MA, Hellebrekers, LJ and Kemp, B 2015 Indicators used in livestock to assess unconscious-ness after stunning: a review. Animal 9(2): 320–330. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731114002596CrossRefGoogle Scholar