A SEALED FATE
Posted on July 2, 2008 - Filed Under Charity, HSUS, Nigel Barker Today, Personal Picts, Photography, Studio NB, Travel Shoots
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11 Responses to “A SEALED FATE”
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The life and times of Nigel Barker
11 Responses to “A SEALED FATE”
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OMG! I have wanted to see this exhibit sooo badly! And I am going on vacation to NYC this summer too! Unfortunately I don’t arrive until August 3rd!
Please tell me that this exhibit is coming to Los Angeles….and sometime after august 9th…
Maybe I should go to NY twice this summer…
I look up to you so much for doing this Nigel, I think its amazing that your doing this.
And, I love what your doing for the Seals, I agree with you 100 percent, if I could go to the exibit I would.
So, thanks again. I’ll keep fighting for the Seals, just like you are. Until the hunt stops.
Hey Mr.Barker,
Saw the news about you documenting the shark hunt! Excellent! Keep up the great work saving the seals and the sharks!
Hi Nigel,
I Have just seen you on the Tyra Banks show, here in South Africa. I applaud you for taking a stand for animals in need, the world needs more people like you. Are you aware That Namibia’s seal clubbing is as bad if not worse than it is in Canada, and we have only one man Francois Hugo from ‘Seal-alert SA’ who has been fighting to put an end to this. After many years he has finally managed to get the EU to ban seal products from Namibia- but still the slaughter continues. Francois, has dedicated his life, and personal savings to save our seals, he single-handedly goes out each day to save seals who are found by the public or himself, who would otherwise not survive. Due to a lack of funds, he often has to turn seals away- which as you can imagine is heartbreaking.
Please go to his website, and if at all possible help his cause, by making a donation- I and all animal lovers here in South Africa will be eternally grateful: http://sealalertsa.wordpress.com/
Seal-alert also has a petition, Please everyone reading this, sign it: http://www.petitiononline.com/DPCFS/petition.html
An extract from an e-mail from Francois, answering to an e-mail asking what Seal-Alert actually does:
Why a one-man seal navy, after a decade of seal protection and rescue? The answer is simple, in order to rescue and rehabilitate each seal requires complete dedication, every day for up to a year. There is no funds for salaries or to pay volunteers. Wild seals cannot be saved by volunteering for a few days. Trust and bonds need to be established in order to be able to effectively treat them over the months of long treatment. Its very specialized and dangerous as a 360kg seal, as large as a bear, can inflict a nasty bite. Baby seals need to adopt you are their parent, if they are to survive. Without physically rescuing these seals in the wild, in all sea conditions, with specialized equipment, one is not able to understand fully what is required to conserve and protect this species for the future.
Wild Cape fur seals in the sea, will not respond to treatment or care, if no trust or bond has been established. Seal disentanglement is very specialized and takes years of skill to master.
As the attached pics illustrates, a day in the life of 45-year old, Francois Hugo, founder of Seal Alert-SA. Seal Alert-SA is a one-man seal-navy fighting for the survival of the Cape fur seals on this planet at the tip of Africa. Internationally known throughout Europe, Asia, America, Australia. I am seal-father and mother, life-saving, rehabber, feeder, care giver, campaigner, researcher, investigator, rescuer to over a million seals dispersed along the coastline covering three countries. My day starts at 6am and ends at 10pm. After a decade, and over 5000 personal seal rescues, I never take a day off or weekend or a holiday. Right now I have 6 baby seals and one yearling undergoing their year long rehab in my seal centre in Hout Bay Harbour, one of which is blind and will require life-time care. Outside on my floating rafts, another 25-50 seals undergoing various stages of treatment or disentanglement. During the course of each year, up to 1000 seal lives are physically saved, many, many more through my ongoing international protection campaigns.
My monthly costs to keep my one-man/seal-life saving operation going exceeds R20 000 a month or 2000 euros. Which is made up entirely of fish feed costs, fuel and medication and the occasional replacement of equipment. Each day I need to raise R500 or 40 euros to purchase fish, just to keep existing rescued seals alive.
My days involve diving in shark patrolled waters, meeting heads of government, doing research, aerial surveillance, rescue of seals in all condition, big 360kg seals and small 5 kg baby seals, rough seas and calm. Internationally I am known as the Seal-Man, its what I do. I do this for no personal income, reward or salary. I am possibly the only organization in the world doing this, and what is more I personal fund the majority of my own rescues. I have no staff, no helpers, no cleaners, no volunteers, no persons answering phones or doing admin.
Every dollar, pound, euro or rand raised goes directly to the seals, and the saving of their lives.
So how do I support myself, for years my wife (Nelda) and I have operated our own business, managing staff, manufacturing, selling and exporting mini-global marine maps. We have exported/sold over 45 000, this business provides my personal income, and a portion of the profits from which, goes again to my seal rescue costs, as my own personal funding. My wife, manages this business. This allows me to dedicate 100% of my time and energies to saving seals.
I am trying to stop thousands of fishermen taking guns to sea to shoot seals. Trying to stop the mutilation of thousands of seals via plastic loops discarded by the fishing industry. Trying to stop 2 Namibian seal clubbing rights holders, disturbing, interfering with the breeding behaviour and clubbing to death of 70% of the Cape fur seals and their young. As seals are extinct and banned from 99% of their offshore breeding habitat, I am trying to re-populate extinct seal islands.
Thousands of baby seals, which cannot swim until 6-weeks of age get washed off natal colonies by storm seas and drown or wash ashore as the offshore rocks they have been restricted to is too small for their survival.
This is my life’s mission, which starts with saving of a seal’s life each day.
If you are looking to help wildlife and this planet, and want to know that your hard earned donations are going directly to saving seals – then this is it. If you do decide to donate, you will deal directly and only with me personally. There is no-one more active, more passionate or more dedicated to saving this species of seals. My incredible record says it all.
In return, I will keep you updated through a weekly email newsletter and/or a video clip of the week’s activities, these can be seen on (http://www.youtube.com/user/sealmancam).
How can you help? Forward this email to family and Friends. Secondly, Funding is the most important, as each seal rescued costs in excess of R3000 or 250 euros. The more financial support received the more seal lives get saved. To avoid the pitfalls of large organizations where large funds are used to appeal for more funds. You could send Seal Alert-SA a monthly contribution, this way I can focus on the seal’s protection and rescue – instead of consuming large amounts of valuable time appealing for funds to keep operating.
Recently the website http://www.sealalert.org has been taken off the internet, as I was unhappy about the way volunteers were running it in the Netherlands, such as opening bank accounts without my consent or not providing me access to audit, and replying to emails addressed to myself or withholding these altogether. This is unacceptable to me and the trust supporters place in Seal Alert. As such all European banking accounts have been closed including Paypal, as these were opened without my consent. All involvement with this website has been withdrawn and a full audit is underway.
Thanks to the French Tv program this website recorded over 5000 visitors since 1 May, I was informed many French supporters wanted to donate funds. I was also informed, that after 2 days over 160 supporters had requested further banking information. According the volunteers operating this site and banking, they have sent me a list that 32 supporters donated funds into European bank accounts. I have requested a full disclosure from these volunteers, who are not co-operating fully. Rest assured, I am investigating and doing a full audit, if there has been any fraudulent activity, I will pursue this and call in the police.
If any supporters have received emails requesting donations on behalf of Seal Alert, or given details to deposit funds in European bank accounts, or place orders from the Seal Alert Shop, or have made donations to any European banks – to please fw me a copy of these details or emails. To assist in my investigation.
I will report further on this and my findings in my next update.
If you would like to contact me direct, my email address is sasealion@wam.co.za and my telephone number in South Africa is 27-21-790 8774.
Below is the only bank account to be used for funding, which has been officially approved by myself (see bottom of the page). Unfortunately South Africa due to its exchange controls does not allow Paypal. Therefore there are two methods to sent funds to Seal Alert-SA, either by direct bank to bank transfer or you can post me a cheque in the name of Seal Alert-SA.
Recently I appealed for 100 supporters to each fund 200 euros to help purchase a 36ft ocean going catamaran boat, that I would like to convert into the world’s first floating seal rescue and rehabilitation facility. As we currently stand about 10% has been received towards this project. The purpose of which is to operate a facility that is better suited to saving seal lives. Over the past few weeks numerous enquiries have been received to help volunteer. Unfortunately until such a vessel is acquired, I am not able to take in volunteers, however if this purchase becomes a possibility, it is envisaged then that small groups of volunteers could join me in my seal rescues along this coast.
Thank you to those that have assisted Seal Alert-SA, and continue to do so.
PS – See below pics of Seal Alert in action.
For the Seals
Francois Hugo Seal Alert-SA
http://www.youtube.com/user/sealmancam
This is incredibly sad to me. I can’t believe it’s still going on. I sign the petitions every year in disbelief.
Thanks for your work, Nigel.
Hi Mr. Barker:
We got invited by to attend but the PR agency couldn’t find our RSVP so our editor and photographer weren’t permitted to the door. So unfortunately, we are not able to promote this great charity and exhibition. Anyways, keep up the good work and we applaud you making your efforts of doing this.
Best wishes for this weekend! As always empower and inspire many!
)
Dear Nigel,
Just yesterday I stumbled upon your pictures of baby seals killed by the hunters in Canada, and my heart stopped! I never saw anything more terrible and cruel in my life!!!
I am from Ukraine and currently living in Israel, but I want so much to help you stop this masacar!
I have a website with 12.000 unique visitors per day, it’s not much, but still… I could put up a banner of the campaign or announce a found raising, if necessary.
Please do let me know if I can be of help.
Thank you very much!
Looking forward to hearing from you.
PS: thank you for showing the public the truth, you are doing a very noble thing!
I am so proud that you are part of this fight. My sister is passionately involved in the Humane Society’s side of the battle (you may remember her: Kathryn Kullberg? Short blonde girl with a fiesty attitude?!) and she speaks so highly of you. It’s so refreshing to see a celebrity so genuinely involved in such a worthy cause. Thank you so much for being the voice for those creatures who cannot defend themselves. Keep fighting! People are listening!
[...] should all know just how Marvelous and Manly Nigel Barker is, what with his heroic efforts to save seals and also sharks [...]
I Love the way you write…thanks for posting