Royal Outrage Over Norse Culling : Swedish King Blasts Seal Slaughter

Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf injected a note of royal outrage today into a growing row with neighboring Norway over the clubbing to death of baby seals.

In an almost unprecedented intervention from a monarch with purely ceremonial duties, Carl Gustaf challenged Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland to stop the slaughter.

Norwegian seal culling was the subject of a gruesome television documentary shown in Britain, Sweden and other countries last week. The film showed seals and cubs being killed with ice picks and axes.

“If Gro Harlem Brundtland can’t take care of the seal problem, how is she supposed to take care of the Norwegian people?” the king said during a royal visit to New Zealand.

The comment, from a monarch who normally steers clear of controversy, went straight to the top of Swedish media reports, with commentators discussing whether he had exceeded his constitutional limitations.

“The Norwegian government should do something about this. Gro Harlem Brundtland should take care of it herself,” Carl Gustaf said at a news conference in Wellington.

A palace spokesman later issued a statement confirming the comments of the environmentally conscious king, who is chairman of the Swedish chapter of the World Wildlife Fund.

Norway, with centuries of seal-hunting tradition, says it needs to control the numbers of harp and hooded seals to stop them from invading the coastline and ravaging fish stocks. It says the ice-pick method of killing is humane.

Former Norwegian Prime Minister Kare Willoch told Swedish radio: “This is an unusual statement by a monarch. It is a decidedly political comment which does not appear to show much understanding for what the problem looks like from our side.”

Swedish Foreign Minister Sten Sture Andersson said: “If the king really said what he did, he must have been very angry.”