Minister Verburg lets down seals and thumbs his nose at the parliament
In December 2009, the parliament accepted a motion (PDF) to assist the SRRC’s scientists financially with their research into the disproportionate number of seals with lungworms at the SRRC. The SRRC was inundated with seals.
Minister Verburg is now thumbing his nose at the Dutch Lower Chamber and has made sure by means of trickery that the SRRC scientists are not allowed to carry out that research.
This winter, a disproportionate number of seals were rushed to the SRRC with lungworms. They were juvenile animals who would suffocate in the worms if they were not treated. They lay along the Dutch coast gasping for air. Hundreds were saved by the SRRC and released again strong and healthy. We would rather not have to rehabilitate so many seals, so carrying out research into the cause is vital. The Chamber found in their motion that the SRRC functions as a centre of knowledge, where fundamental practical research is being carried out. With our archives and blood and tissue samples, dating back 35 years, a whole line of scientific publications and close cooperation with the University of Leiden, among others, our scientists are in an excellent position to carry out this scientific research.
This was what the Parliament thought.
But not the minister.
For seal-research, the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality is fully dependant on one research institute, IMARES, in Wageningen. Every year, millions of Euros go to them and that institute became angry when they realised that maybe one hundred thousand of ‘their’ funds would go to the SRRC instead.
Minister Gerda Verburg (CDA), therefore, devised a trick. She told the Chamber that the money would not be going to the SRRC, but to the “Trilateral Seal Expert Group”. This consists of a small group of researchers from Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. For some unknown reason the SRRC scientists are not allowed to participate in this group. IMARES is the only Dutch club allowed in. In this way IMARES still receives the research funds, the Chamber is made to look foolish, the SRRC ends up with empty hands again and the seals remain filled with lungworms.04-21-2010 Source: SRRC Lenie 't Hart
