Related Posts
EU enacts seal product ban – with exceptions
To Canadian disappointment, a ban on the importation of seal products into the European Union was enacted yesterday....
A million seal pups drown off Canada’s coast‘A million seal pups dead’ – this was the headline (in Swedish) for a brief article in Friday’s...
Storms beach baby harp seals in Netherlands
Due to recent storms in Europe, over 100 baby harp seals have washed up on the northern shores...
Seal and Sea Lions Shot to Death Near Seattle Include Endangered Species
Some people have no qualms when it comes to killing animals and even less so when those animals...
Endangered Species of the Week: Mediterranean monk seal
Species: Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus)
Status: Critically Endangered (CR)
Interesting Fact: The Mediterranean monk seal appeared on one of...
Get your Eco Starter Kit
Create an account and start harvesting Carbon Credits! Exchange your Carbon Credits for green goodies, like the Eco-Hatchery Starter Kit!
-
Green network users
3,026 Users - Show All
Green Directory
Tip of the Day
Go grocery shopping locally to help reduce your carbon footprint
Canadian seal hunt highlights international controversy
photo from lilone from fb and uknova (source: Flickr Creative Commons)
The annual seal hunt is currently winding down in northern Newfoundland, Canada. Clubbing and hooking baby seals while they squeal helplessly on the ice is a disturbing image – even for some hunters. It’s a plainly brutal practice that draws lots of sympathy, especially in societies that categorize animals into sometimes-arbitrary roles. Cats and dogs are ‘companion animals’ and cannot be killed for food, while pigs and cows are slaughtered routinely, often in shockingly industrialized conditions.
From an article in the Telegraph:
The hunt is always deeply controversial and highly emotive. Critics argue that baby seals, alone on the ice after being nursed by their mothers for their first 12 days, are being shot and bludgeoned to meet humankind’s vain demands for fur.
A recent EU ban on imported seal fur is damaging Canada’s controversial industry. The global economic downturn isn’t helping either. But the EU ban, based on the fact that the seal hunt is cruel – which it obviously is – is a bit hypocritical. According to an article in the Economist, the EU allows culling of seals by fishermen in Britain, Sweden, and Finland. It even funded a program that encouraged eating culled seals in 2007.
Relatively few Europeans agree with animal-rights activists that any killing of animals is bad. But most people do not eat or wear seals, are squeamish about killing cuddly doe-eyed mammals, and do not worry about the inconsistency of such a ban being enforced by a group of nations which kills it own seals for the expediency of fishermen, and kills tens of millions of farmed foxes and minks for their pelts every year.
–Economist
Seals, with their soulful eyes and dog-like behavior, are a bit too much like pets for many of us. We especially can’t sit back and watch fluffy white puppies get hacked to death on the ice. But for the Nunavummiuts – the native people of Canadian territory of Nunavut – seals are a traditional source of food in an unforgiving environment. Inuit seal hunting – which uses guns rather than clubs – only accounts for 3% of Canada’s seal hunting and is not covered by the EU ban.
The modern globalized capitalist system has changed things a bit in recent years. International trade and animal welfare sometimes converge with economic, moral and cultural consequences. There are claims that seal populations need to be ‘managed’ because they eat the same vanishing fish stocks that people do, a claim that has been disputed by Greenpeace, among others. But are Newfoundland’s seal hunting methods less humane than the US’s industrial livestock farms or Europe’s fur farms for that matter? Both industrialized slaughter and the clubbing of seals during hunts and culls in Newfoundland are plainly awful.
Seal hunters, like baby seals, are easy targets. But the hunt isn’t less humane than the American pork industry, for example. It’s just that more people can do without seal pelts than without bacon and so it’s worth less money. As far as Europe’s ban on seal pelts goes, maybe it’s a case of democracy in action trumping international trade rules – or at least Canada and Norway’s interpretation of those laws.
Personally, I’d like to see fishing, hunting and livestock raising policies that take cruelty and sustainability into account from a holistic standpoint. After all, it isn’t really the seals’ fault that fish stocks are disappearing, is it?
by Graham Land
Additional resources:
Humane Society – Seal Hunt 2010: Closing Time
Tags: baby, Canada, EU, Europe, farm, fur, humane, hunt, industry, Newfoundland, seal, seals
11 Comments
You can also log in to post a comment.
Other Greenfudge.org posts
Map Ta Phut – The environmental costs of Thailand’s industrial boom
In Thailand's status as a leading 'Asian tiger' economy is marred by the dangerous pollution at the industrial port of Map Ta Phut. It is the center of Thailand's petrochemical and power industry, but the environmental and health concerns of local residents have cast a shadow over the economic benefits Map Ta Phut's industrial plants have brought. It is one of the world's largest petrochemical hubs and has been driving Thailand's industrial growth for decades. But critics accuse the refineries at Map...
Breaking News: Greenhouse Gases Reach Record Level
In an alarming statement from the World Meteorological Organization, the world’s greenhouse gas emissions have reached a record level—something that hasn’t happened since the pre-industrial era. According to the statement, atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased 38% since 1750; which contributes to more than 63% of the increase in the greenhouse effect. Last year, CO2 levels reached 385.2 ppm (parts per million), which is a 2.0 increase from previous years. “It’s not really good news: concentration of greenhouse gases continue to increase, actually...
Geo-engineering and the problem of sea levels
Geo-engineering doesn't prevent at all the rise of the tides. Engineering on a global scale is not a solution, even in an emergency, to the climate damage caused by human activities. This is the conclusion reached by a team of British, Chinese and Danish researchers after a new study on the future of the Earth's oceans. In their opinion there is no escape: sea levels will rise at least 30-70 cm by the end of 2100, even using the latest...
Chernobyl needs new radiation shield: European countries urged to chip in
25 years after the worst nuclear accident in history, hundreds of millions of euros are needed to encase Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine amid fears of another potentially disastrous radiation leak. European and Ukrainian officials are trying to drum up hundreds of millions of euros to complete the project of encasing the site in steel. According to the Independent, the EU has contributed around €500m so far, but another €740 is needed: In recent years, the structure has become extremely unstable,...
Energy efficient lighting: ‘This bulb looks like a soft serve ice cream’
For those of you who didn’t swoon when Edward Norton urged us to ban the plastic bag, here is another National Geographic video featuring Hollywood starlets Natalie Portman and Chloe Sevigny. I dare you to watch it without afterwards gleefully smashing your energy-sucking bulbs and rushing out for a bunch of those efficient twirly CFL thingies. These moppets of the big screen want us to switch from incandescent to fluorescent bulbs because it will save lots of cute animals, our families...
Appeal against Welsh badger cull successful
A plan to kill off some 1,500 badgers in the north Pembrokeshire area of Wales via trapping and shooting has been reversed by a Welsh appeals court. Many farmers and government ministers in Wales, concerned that bovine tuberculosis (TB) is being spread to cattle via badgers, supported the cull. On Tuesday animal welfare advocates, including the RSPCA and UK charity the Badger Trust, successfully appealed an earlier decision to allow the cull. From to a BBC News report: The appeal court made its decision...
Proof that pesticides kill honeybees
The jury is in: common agricultural pesticides disrupt the navigation systems of honeybees and reduce the weight and number of queens in bumblebee hives. Two separate studies showed strong links between pesticides and the epidemic disappearance of honeybees in the US and UK, known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Experiments showed that honeybees died or failed to return to their hives in much greater numbers than expected. Bumblebees exposed to typical levels of pesticides saw their hives populations shrink by 10% versus...
Calling All U.S. Photographers: The National Park Photo Contest!
If any of you have not heard yet, Ken Burns is releasing a new PBS documentary on DVD, called “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea”. To promote and celebrate the release of this DVD set, PBS is teaming up with Paramount and The Daily Green to hold a special photography contest! The basic rules are: You must be a resident of the United States You may submit up to 10 different photos. The photos you submit must be of a U.S. National Park (i.e....
Nuclear power in Sweden: A question of jobs and the climate
Job growth and climate change trump safety concerns amongst most Swedes when it comes to the use of nuclear energy and apparently also the storage of nuclear waste. The Swedish parliament may have (at least until recently) regularly voted to phase out nuclear power in Sweden, but the Swedish public is less steady in their feelings about atomic energy. A poll from 2008 by market research agency Synovate and newspaper Dagens Nyheter showed that 48% supported the construction of new nuclear...
Farmville: Urban farms are sprouting up
In San Francisco, California and Berlin, Germany, urban farms and gardens are popping up like weeds. In the San Francisco Bay area, which includes cities such as Oakland and Berkley, farming regulations are being modernized to include legal provisions for urban agriculture. Rooftops, derelict plots and median strips are being transformed into gardens by progressive new local government directives. Berkeley soon will take up a measure to allow residents to sell raw agricultural products from home without a costly permit. And Oakland has...
View all articles
Please remove the blatant inaccuracies within your article that you are peddling as ‘truth’:
1. The hunting of whitecoats (as in the picture you are displaying) has been illegal in Canada for many decades. It is misleading to present that picture in reference to the material you are discussing.
2. Inhumane killings account for less than 5% of all kills during the Canadian Seal Hunt – a statistic thoroughly investigated and confirmed by an independent group of veterinarians. To call seal hunting a ‘brutal practice’ is misleading.
Thanks for calling attention to the seal hunt in Namibia.
http://www.canadiansealhunt.com/namibiasealhunt.html
Namibia is very small and relatively poor country with high levels of inequality (half exist on under U.S.$1.25 a day). Besides, it has only been independent for 20 years, so I can understand why more attention is given to Canada. Still, it sounds pretty gruesome.
There are six species of seal on the endangered species list, not one group (PETA, SSCS, HSUS etc) gives a hoot about them. The seal hunt in Namabia, not one group interested. HSUS made one token trip and were almost beat. The harp seal population as grown from 2 million to 7 million plus and they are all interested in the Harp seal. It has been documented that it is the main money maker. See Barbra Frums CBC interview with Paul Watson, he spilled the beans on all these groups. All their web pages, dated images (some over 30 years old), white coats everywhere and they havn’t been hunted since 1987, this years video of the hunt edited so that the public thinks the seals are being clubed, The Canadain Seal hunt is used to fleece, bleed, milk and squeeze every possible cent out of the public. What a shame.
Folks who are upset, visit a slaughter house (you wouldn’t be allowed). 7 millon seals this year, 1.2 million pups, only 70 thousand harvested, that’s 1% of the population. HSUS wants to make $400,000.00 this year on the backs of the Canadain Fishermen. That’s why they are interested, its their money maker.
InternetFactChecker – thanks for your comments. I did confuse some things and was unclear about others, so I have made several changes. Still, the Newfoundland hunt could be considered ‘traditional’ as it has been going on since the 1700s.
/
Andrea – those whitecoats are fair game as soon as they molt, so the fact that they are legally clubbed to death (at only 12-15 days old?) is a detail in the law that seems a bit cynical to me.
I have just returned from Newfoundland where I was observing and documenting the commercial seal hunt and would like to point out Andrea from the Canadian government is mistaken in her claims, as there is evidence the slaughter (it is not a “harvest”, as seals are sentient mammals, not wheat or corn) is neither closely monitored nor enforced. We witnessed some of the worst cruelty this year, and we documented multiple violations of sealers’ licence conditions and multiple acts of extreme animal cruelty. Sealers were shooting pups in the face, leaving them to suffer horribly on the ice for long periods of time, impaling them on hooks while still alive and showing conscious reaction to pain, and slicing them open on the decks of their boats. The team watched in horror as one pup, shot in the face, crawled across the ice, shaking her head as bits of her face sprayed in all directions. Officials from the Canadian government were in the area but evidently were looking the other way. DFO could not monitor and enforce the law in an area with six sealing boats but continue to claim they adequately monitor an area larger than France which normally holds over 1,000 sealing boats! The commercial seal hunt is inherently inhumane and can never be made humane. It is physically impossible for DFO to monitor and enforce the law, even if it had the will to do so. There are no markets for seal products. The largest buyer of Canadian skins did not buy anything this year, explaining they have skins stockpiled from previous years which they cannot sell. Sealers admitted to media they were dumping seal skins overboard. The majority of Canadians oppose the commercial seal hunt and object to their tax dollars being used to fund and promote it. A recent poll showed half of Newfoundland sealers holding an opinion indicated they would take a license buyout. It is time for the Canadian government to start listening to Canadians, ban this obscene annual slaughter and implement the alternatives.
repeated propaganda coming from the corrupt canadian fisheries organization that the seal massacre is “humane”. Year after year of documented and filmed evidence including veterinary reports proves otherwise. Seals Fully 95% of the harp seals killed over the past five years have been under three months of age. Seals are legally clubbed when these defenseless pups have changed their coats at two weeks when they can’t eat solid food or swim—they literally had no escape from the “hunters”. From veterinary reports more than 40% of clubbed or shot seals are still conscious when they are skinned alive. Scenes of horror on the ice including wailing mothers trying to protect their bloodied pups from the savages bearing down on them with spiked clubs, wounded seals slipping beneath the ice to die long and agonizing deaths, and live seals being dragged with hooks across the ice to be skinned. Many whitecoats are taken illegally according to filmed evidence. There is good reason why the reprehensible fishing “ministry” bans observers. For the few reported cases of cruelty the so called “fishing ministry” covers those up and rewards the offender with a token slap on the wrist at most. Despite the ban on observers 660 documented/filmed cases of cruelty were presented to the European Union when they implemented the ban. The European Union did not operate on hearsay.
Hi, my name is Andrea and I work for the Government of Canada on the seal file. I would like to point out that sealing in Canada is closely monitored and enforced to ensure that seals are harvested in the most humane way possible. Also, the harvesting of whitecoat seals, such as the one included in the photo above, has been illegal in Canada since 1987. For anyone interested in learning more about the harvest, visit: http://bit.ly/9rqEQe
1.The native people of Newfoundland are not Nunavummiuts, you’re confusing Newfoundland with Nunavut.
2.The commercial seal hunt in Canada is undertaken in Newfoundland and involves no one from Nunavut, the seals that are hunted by people in Nunavut is completely different from the one off the coast of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
3.The EU ban on seal imports does not cover the hunt in Nunavut, besides the Inuit hunters in Nunavut use guns and kill the seals much more quickly than in the Newfoundland hunt where they are beaten to death, so blather about traditional methods is ridiculous and inaccurate.
4.According to “international trade laws”, ie the WTO article XX sections a,b, and g, the EU seal pelt ban is completely legal
5.Seals are not eating all the fish, the fisheries collapsed due to over-fishing, and governments blamed seals, despite evidence showing that in the case of the seals off the coast of Newfoundland they actually eat very little cod, and actually eat the main predator of cod in higher numbers, so if anything seals are helping fish stocks
As more people in the world opt to be peaceable and respect all life and the environment, morons like klem will be left in the litterbox of humanity, where he and the other murdering idiots that kill everything in sight belong!
“As far as Europe’s ban on seal pelts goes, maybe it’s a case of democracy in action ”
Correct. And when the leftists get dumped from their jobs after the next election, that seal ban legislation will be repealed. That’s democracy in action too. yea baby!!