Opinion ID: 348720
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Nursing

Text: 43 The statute also prohibits importation of sealskins from animals who were nursing at the time of taking   . 53 The Government determined that this provision, like the age limitation, would be impossible to administer unless the agency established some general standard for all seals. In the waiver and regulations the Government set such a standard: first, it ruled that nursing means nursing which is obligatory for the physical health and survival of the nursing animal; 54 second, it ruled that each and every seal has ceased obligatory nursing by August 1. 55 Appellants contend that there is nothing in the statute or the legislative history to justify the distinction between obligatory and convenience nursing and that, in any event, all seals have not ceased obligatory nursing by August 1. 44 In order to decide whether the Government's distinction is consistent with the statute, it is necessary to know what the purpose of the nursing prohibition was. Why was Congress concerned about the killing of nursing animals? The legislative history sheds little light on this question. But the parties agree the restriction does not relate to reproduction or maintenance of the seal population, because seals do not reproduce until at least a year after they have ceased all nursing. Rather, it appears that Congress was responding to an emotional conviction that killing babies who were still nursing was intolerably cruel. The legislative history speaks of public indignation and public opinion. 56 Nursing seems to have been used as a measure of infancy, of vulnerability and helplessness. While it is admittedly unusual to find a statutory purpose based entirely on emotional concerns, it is perfectly proper in the context of a statute which also prohibits killing in an inhumane manner, where humane is defined as involving the least possible degree of pain and suffering practicable to the mammal involved. 57 There is surely no resource management explanation for this provision; nor is there, as far as we know, for the nursing prohibition. 45 Assuming then that the statute responded to emotional concerns, there is clearly no justification for the technical distinction between obligatory and convenience nursing which the Government grafted onto the statute. The statute is plain; it bars importation of any animal which was nursing at the time of taking. It is undisputed that seals cease all nursing by October each year, when the mother seals leave the rookeries. Therefore, as in the case of age, there was available to the Government a workable, standard method of applying the provision. Instead, the Government invented a distinction whose only purpose was to allow more importation of seals. 58 As the Marine Mammal Commission stated in opposing the Government's decision: 46 As in the case of mean date of birth, the concept of obligate nursing is necessary in order to resolve a special problem faced by the applicant and is not necessary in order to remedy any fatal defect in the Act.    47    Contrived arguments that the applicant can import an animal which was killed because it did not need to nurse in order to survive but was only doing so as a convenience (are) irrelevant and inadequate for purposes of satisfying the categorical, unqualified statutory mandate of Section 102(b)(2)   . 59 48 Because we reject the Government's use of the obligatory nursing concept to narrow the unambiguous command of the statute, we do not reach the question of when obligatory nursing ceases. 60