On April 19th 2007 Lenie’s son, Pieter ‘t Hart will take his doctoral degree from the VU University (Vrije Universiteit) in Amsterdam for his dissertation ‘Seal hunt in the Netherlands, 1591 – 1962’. For nine years he has been ploughing through numerous archives and unearthing facts that often had been long forgotten. In his dissertation Pieter describes the seal hunt as it was in the Netherlands for a period of almost four hundred years. In 1591, the province of Zeeland introduced a premium ruling for captured seals. For every killed seal the provincial government would pay out a sum of money to the hunter. The seal hunt would exist for almost four centuries. The path that Pieter ‘t Hart travels through time in his book creates a unique, often unknown account of national history.
In his book, Pieter explains the development of the seal hunt, its legal forms and the background to the premium rulings. A changing constitution, the organisation of the fishery and social-economic factors influenced the government’s involvement in the seal hunt. The PhD student found this out by studying age-old administrations. Pieter: ‘Anything concerning money has always been minutely documented in the Netherlands. I have unfolded documents which have been kept for years and still contained the original sand used to dry the ink.’
The payment of premiums ended during the Second World War, in 1942. After the occupation the seal hunt was resumed even though premiums were no longer paid out to hunters. Nevertheless, the hunting of baby seals for the fur-trade increased so much that seals threatened to disappear from the Netherlands altogether. This is why seal hunting was banned in 1962.
Pieter ‘t Hart shows that over centuries it was people’s attitude towards seals that have prescribed the rules concerning the animals. The research into the seal hunt in Zeeland, therefore, gives an insight into the mechanism that has governed the development of new regulations. Pieter finds that history is of great value for the analysis of the present day and future decision process regarding seals.
08-04-2007 Source: SRRC Lenie 't Hart
