Canada Seal Hunt Begins Amid Controversy

TORONTO — Canada's annual seal hunt started Monday, under pressure from a possible European Union ban on imported seal products.

The world's largest marine mammal hunt was called "inherently inhumane" earlier this month by a European Parliament committee that endorsed the bill to ban the import of seal products to the 27-member union. Animal rights groups say the hunt is cruel, difficult to monitor and ravages the seal population.

But sealers and Canada's Fisheries Department counter that the hunt is humane and sustainable, and brings extra money to isolated fishing communities.

Fishermen sell seal pelts mostly for the fashion industry in Norway, Russia and China, as well as blubber for oil. The hunt exported around $5.5 million worth of seal products such as pelts, meat, and oils to the EU in 2006.

Canadian politicians lobbied intensely to try to convince the European committee that the hunt is humane. The bill must be approved by the entire EU assembly and EU governments to become law, a move that could come as early as next month.

Though acknowledging that the shooting or bludgeoning of the animals is a bloody activity, Canadian authorities contend the animals are killed quickly and do not suffer unnecessarily.

New rules are aimed at ensuring that seals are dead before they are skinned. Hunters are also forbidden from killing seal pups that haven't molted their downy white fur.

"The picture that has been painted in people's minds is that we have small white coat baby seals that are being clubbed over the head and skinned while they are alive. It's just so not true," Gail Shea, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

"Now the population in Europe has bought into this and it has spilled over to the political arena and the politicians are trying to respond to their electorate," she said.

EU legal experts say the ban could violate world trade rules, and Canada has warned it could challenge a ban before the World Trade Organization.

Rebecca Aldworth, director of Humane Society International Canada, said the ban should prompt Canada to end the hunt altogether.

"It's clear to me that change is in the air," she said.

But the hunt has overwhelming support in Canada. Shea said her department wouldn't be able to control the seal population of about 5.6 million without the hunt.

The United States has banned Canadian seal products since 1972. The Netherlands and Belgium also ban seal products.

Comments

[mjc]

Baby seal hunts do leave the impression of baby seals being clubbed...at least into immobility, and then skinned. It has been permitted for many, many years and the only industry it really serves is the fur industry which caters to the rich and famous. There is no statement by any bureaucrat in Canada that changes exactly what the so-called "hunt" is and how the furs are extracted. Nothing other than the failure of political leaders to do what is right by their nation is more harmful to OUR species or to any other species. We ignore the warnings of global climate change; we permit species which have been around for many centuries before helicopters and snowmobiles to be slaughtered for....well, that's the real rub because it is not in self-defense; and we are eliminating elephants and tigers and lions in an effort to claim bits of land. We are leaving nothing for our children and their children except zoos....and it is going to very lonely for our species if it continues.

[JXJASON]

I am an American who has lived in Newfoundland, Canada.

Leave these Canadians alone. They are doing nothing wrong and are earning a bit of money to supplement their incomes. The article says that they might earn 5.5 million dollars from exports.

The US exports war to Afghanistan at a cost of American lives and TWO BILLION DOLLARS A MONTH and about 175 BILLION DOLLARS since the war in Afghanistan started eight years ago.

I wonder how many environmentalists have complained to President Obama and Congress about more troops and more money being wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan?.

[DrJohnnySkeptic]

' "The picture that has been painted in people's minds is that we have small white coat baby seals that are being clubbed over the head and skinned while they are alive. It's just so not true," Gail Shea, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.'

Yeah, if that helps you sleep at night.

I can't even understand how these people can get up in the morning and look at themselves in the face. They are all despicable to be inflicting or supporting this violence against these sweet creatures.

As far as the seal population goes, seals are the favorite food of many predators: sharks, killer whales, and polar bears are three of the largest predators of seals. Polar bears hunt for seals by finding the places where the seal is hiding on the ice, and pouncing on them. Sharks can hunt seals by hiding very deep in the sea, and rushing upwards when they see a seal overhead.

The seals have enough natural predators who need to eat - nothing is wasted and THAT is what will keep the seal population down. These jerks are just trying to justify their evil deeds by lying to the world and deluding themselves.

[SFTor]

These "sweet creatures" are predators just like humans. They eat and are in turn eaten. Your sentimentality is testimony to your ignorance of natural processes, and a denial of your own nature.

The seal populations are large: about 5.6 million animals are estimated. They compete with people for fish resources, so we cull the population to reduce their predation. People need no other reason to do so than the competition they constitute. Seal products become available through the hunt, and is used for a variety of purposes.

Looks like a pretty good deal all around.

[Aphrodite Kerylidis]

Seal slaughtering would have to one of the most vilest act of animal cruelty from humanity - nothing and I mean nothing can excuse this heinous and supremely inhumane type of activity.

ANIMAL CRUELTY OF ANY KIND IS UNFORGIVABLE!!!! NOT NEGOTIABLE!!!

I can only pray that the Canadian politicians cease this useless and horrific hunt sooner than later.

[PG13]

people got to take note that the Seal population is large and healthy while Cod numbers keep on diminishing.

An important note is that is essential to control seal population to preserve cod numbers.

I do agree that they should use more humane ways hunting seal. But sealers are cheap and they don't want to spend money on ammunition while they can club the seal for cheap with a crowbar.

The best way to fix the seal hunt is to require the hunters to use live ammunition and kill the seal in one shot to make it painless

[ldavis24]

the cod population is dwindling because humans have fished it nearly out of existence. Cape Cod used to be cod central now we get our Cod imported from Australia because they were over fished and are now gone. Somehow I doubt the seals are to blame for the cod and I also doubt that their numbers are the reason cod numbers are shrinking.

Humans might want to ease off on fishing them for a while before blaming seals.

[GuyRC]

in a natural system fish and seal populations would be linked, but modern fisheries collapse because of overfishing by humans who employ ever more effiicient fishing technology. the idea that you can restore the cod fishing industry by killing ever other creature that eats cod is simply bogus.

[SFTor]

You can't restore the cod fishery by killing seals, but they eat a hell of a lot of fish. Culling them helps reduce the fish they take out of the sea.

[SFTor]

It seems like the killing tool, the hakapik, does a pretty good job. I don't think a bullet would necessarily be any more humane.

[WunderY]

Oh the hypocrisy as we eat our chicken, pork chops, hot dogs and steaks and walk in our leather shoes wearing leather jackets, sleeping with feather filled duvets, and pillows, sit in our leather chairs, car seats and sofas. I love the smell of bacon, or a pulled pork sandwich piled high or a thick cut steak on the barbeque. How many of you have salivated reading this. How many sizzling steak or juicy hamburger commercials do you see in a day, in a week?

However, we feel that the Canadian seal hunt is a terrible thing and feel self righteous in condemning it.

[jadamind]

so the mothers usually have one seal pup. The pup has yet to take it's first swim, or fend for itself, it is just a blob fascinated by this new thing called life. The assailants hide and wait for the mothers to go under the ice for more food...then they approach the little thing, which is too young to even understand the danger it is in. The heartless gimp then smashes the pup in the head and drags it across the ice to skin it. Do you actually think they wait to make sure the pup is dead, check it's pulse before they skin it? No, often the babes are skinned alive. The mother comes back to a bloody mess that once was her newborn. You were saying?

[WunderY]

I am not emotionally attached to seals and recognize how dramatic images of red blood on white snow appear. Also dramatic are images of seals being clubbed in a manner that is regulated. Such regulated killing occurs in animal slaughter houses worldwide; however the images of slaughtering cows, pigs, lamb and poultry do not create the same emotional outrage as the seal hunt.

If an animal is slaughtered on snow then the contrasting red blood on white snow is a very powerful image.

Humans kill animals. That is the reality. We even put our dogs and cats to sleep where we feel justified.

[mjc]

Baby seals are not a part of our food change, either, and there is not one reason in the world to kill them as babies EXCEPT to ge their white fur for those who want to prove their conspicious consumption by wearing a fur that is outrageously expensive. Seals don't feed anyone except other sea animals and at least that is something the adults seals expect.

[dayala]

according to information obtained under the FOIA, the Sealers themselves said the hunt is cruel.
read about their reports in the link where mother seals were sliced open and fetuses popped out
and were thrown overboard...it is the most gruesome and barbaric display of human depravity towards
other beings on this planet.

I hope the EU reads their accounts and adopts a full-blown ban on these pelts, how any civilized human could even wear one is unimaginable.

http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-090325-1.html

[Karl Finton]

here is my two cents. It would be nice of we all showed a little more compassion, for the seals as wellas for eachother.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZZ01v6-ATc
if that doesn't make you smile, nothing will.

[totalliberal]

As soon as the Americans stop shooting deer, bears, wolves, ducks, geese and rats... Ah heck.... As soon as they stop shooting everything that walks, flies, and crawls. Give me a break.

[fbr79]

I'm vegetarian and I don't care if people hunt to eat the meat, as most people who hunt the animals you described do. I do care if people hunt for the fashion industry and to make oil, which is the reason these seals are hunted. Why is a American/Canadian comparison necessary in this argument? Don't Canadians also hunt deer, bears, wolves, etc. as well?

[artistmother]

There are inaccuracies in the report, probably reported by official Canadian sources. First, the seal hunt is actually OPPOSED by a substantial MAJORITY of Canadians. Second, how can the hunt be "humane" when 95% of seals hunted are under 3 months of age, the majority newborns under one month old, and according to independent veterinarians doing post-mortem autopsies, 42% were skinned while alive and able to feel pain?

The Canadian government has long sustained that harp seals were responsible for the near-collapse of the cod industry, which is untrue. Even a rudimentary understanding of ecology and population dynamics shows that IF the seals reproduced too quickly and ate too much fish, they would have insufficient food and the population of seals would quickly diminish. Only humans overharvest natural resources because we artificially manipulate them. Perhaps the hunt is the Canadian government's attempt to pay for its miserable management of cod stocks.

However, the seal hunt represents only about 1% of the annual income for approximately 6,000 fishermen. They need, and deserve, better solutions for their economic fragility. The commercial seal hunt is not the answer. It's incredibly dangerous and incredibly inhumane. Additionally, indigenous peoples are not part of the commercial slaughter of seals. They are subsistence hunters, killing only when needed, and using all parts of the animal .

Please, let's do all we can to end this heinous crime against nature. Several organizations are working to end this seal slaughter: the Humane Society, IFAW, Sea Shepherds, Harpseals.

[NoSillyName]

I don't understand how any human being can be so heartless and cruel and so lacking in empathy or compassion.

[msjimmied]

First the Polar Bear pictures and now this...why do we have to be inundated with pictures of what unevolved humans do? So besides making the newfies the butt of jokes, does the government of Canada have another plan for future prosperity? Not to say we got it all together here...

[Belphegor]

Politicians are always so short-sighted everywhere. Concerned about a few votes in one province while the public image of the entire country of Canada deteriorates every year. I am sure that even financially it does not pay off.

[Shelley Cooper-Stephenson]

I want to strongly disagree with writer, Rob Gilles, when he says: "But the hunt has overwhelming support in Canada. Earlier this year, Sen. Mac Harb introduced an anti-sealing bill, but he couldn't find a colleague to second his motion to send it to debate." I am born & bred Canadian,living here for 50 years. Almost all people from all of Canada, EXCEPT the province (read "state") of Newfoundland, strongly object to the seal hunt. But Newfoundlanders have hunted these seals for 150 years, along with fishing. Now that the fish stocks are so low because of pollution, huge numbers of Newfoundlanders are unemployed and desperate to keep some of their work alive to feed their families. The federal government does not want to have to deal with the unemployment & lost work, so they just support the seal hunt , The Federal politicians are cowards who are in a minority government at the present & are too afraid to stand up against the Seal Hunt because they're afraid they might lose a few votes next election.The vast majority of Canadians are appalled by the Seal Hunt & lobby & protest the Government every year to stop it. The Senate doesn't actually DO anything here, btw. It is not at all like your Senate. All they do is approve (or, very seldom, not) the bills passed by the House of Commons which has all the power & is run at the moment by a Bushite, to our great shame &

[KCFreedom]

Good luck in your next elections. Hope you can get rid of those right-wing hemorroids in your government. We thought we did in the U.S. but unfortunately we might have gotten hoodwinked.

That might teach us not to vote for whom our news media choose for us, but I am not too confident.

[HelleneAtheist]

Shame on you Canadians!