 |
 |
Home | Site Map | Search |
 |
How to Help | Resources | Spreading the Word | About the Seal Hunt | About Seals | News + Press | Politics + Propaganda | About Us |
 |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Seal Hunt 2009 - Letters & Op-EdsHere we reprint letters and op-ed columns both for and against the seal hunt. They may have misinformation and be deceptive, but we believe that it is beneficial to see what those who support the seal hunt claim. You will see that many who support the seal hunt still claim that seal pups are not killed anymore. They want us to buy their assertion that a seal is no longer a baby once he/she begins to molt or is weaned. By this standard, dogs and cats are adults when they reach 4 to 5 weeks of age.
Whack a seal, it’s our right
|
 Jack Troake stands next to his Canadian flag that he has used to show his disgust for the Canadian government. He lays most of the blame for the present situation relative to the current troubles with the seal hunt on the federal government. Howard Butt photo |
Twillingate sealer blames federal government European ban on seal products
TWILLINGATE
BY HOWARD BUTT
The Pilot
May 20, 2009
"It's a sad day for us," said Jack Troake as he stood beside his Canadian flag that he had raised upside-down in protest. "And I still can't understand it.
"The federal government had plenty of time to do something about them protestors because they knew right well what was happening. They even helped them by giving them permits to go out and view the hunt - and a good many of them are criminals or near enough to it."
"I had lots of problems years ago saying I was a Canadian," he said, "but now I'll never say it again."
Mr. Troake was venting his frustration over the announcement by the European Parliament on May 5 to ban trade on all seal products. And the vote had a clear-cut majority of 550 in favour to 49 against. He firmly believes that the Canadian government, since they are the ones who control the hunt, are at fault. So in frustration and to show his disgust, he raised his flag upside-down
"And I've got a problem understanding that type of vote, too," said Mr. Troake, "when a lot of those countries have been coming over here for hundreds of years and still coming and taking our cod, and we can't. And now they're trying to stop the seal hunt, because that's what it's all about. It's not just stopping the commercial trade in seal products, and our government is doing very little about it.
"You know what I think? I think Ottawa, or a good many of them up there, is tickled pink on how things are turning out because our government doesn't want us to hunt the seals either. If they did, there would have been far more opposition long before this."
"But the seal hunt won't collapse, you know," added Mr. Troake. "It's been going on now for 500 years and it'll continue, not the same as it used to be, perhaps, but it'll still take place each spring."
Mr. Troake pointed out that Russia and China have yet to be developed as markets and they should be able to take care of a fair number of seals and the products that are associated.
"We may never get to the high prices that we enjoyed a short time ago," he suggested, "but the hunt will continue."
Mr. Troake noted that a good part of his claim that the hunt will continue is that the hunt is not just about the pelt or skin but there are a number of important products from the seal that the world will be demanding.
"There's an almost endless line of benefits from the seal," he said. "I doubt if there's another animal anywhere in the world that offers so many benefits.
"The latest is the use of the heart valve for transplant in humans, a proven item according to recent research, and it's claimed to be much better than any valve that has been used to date. And the list includes other things such as Omega 3 oil that is a proven health benefit."
"You haven't heard the last of this from those people who like to wear furs either," added Mr. Troake. "What right has the European Parliament or any other law maker to tell the consumer what to wear or not to wear?
"It's certainly not part of any democracy that I'm aware of."
Meanwhile, one thing seems certain. Jack Troake will not be wearing his flag as it should be for a long time to come unless the present situation comes right-side-up.
 Seal meat: recreational sealer Gord Casey of Corner Brook, n.L., is about to enjoy a meal of seal. The meat is a healthy part of a balanced diet, he says. (Photo: Canadian Press) |
Recreational sealer wonders how long the tradition will continue
Published Tuesday May 19th, 2009
CORNER BROOK, N.L. - Gord Casey knows the tradition that's at stake in the battle over the seal hunt. The Corner Brook resident has gone to get his six seals as a recreational sealer nearly every year for the past 30 years.
The junior high school teacher said his tradition of getting a few meals of seal meat for his family is in danger of fading away.
His sons Andrew and Michael have harvested seals with their father, but he said there's very few people passing on the tradition.
Casey said a lot of people and communities are losing their desire and enthusiasm for the seal hunt because of the issues surrounding the hunt.
He said the price for pelts is at an all-time low and ice conditions this year caused problems, especially in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. And risking your life to go after a product that's of little value just doesn't make sense, he added.
The hunt this year is a small affair in comparison to years past. Casey said especially in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the west coast of the Northern Peninsula, the talk of a ban in the European Union is making it difficult to head to the ice.
The hunt by its very nature is mostly for professional sealers. Casey said the dangers, risks and costs involved make it a difficult recreational pastime.
"Those who have recreational licences, that's mostly a tradition and providing a food for their family," Casey said. "That's why I go. It's a tradition. It's something we've always done. It's something we hope to continue to be able to do."
He believes a lot of people in Newfoundland and Labrador should speak out in support of the seal hunt because they're on the list of targets if a ban is put in place.
"If they're (animal rights activists) successful banning the seal hunt, they're moving on to a new species," he said. "It may be moose, it may be caribou, it may be the turkey hunt. It's going to be something. They're not stopping. Some of those groups are totally against the consumption of any type of meat or any type of product from an animal. They're not stopping at simply, 'we've got the seal hunt put to bed, that's great, that's the end of it.' That's not going to happen."
Casey said a good number of the 2,000 recreational seal hunters return to their home towns in rural Newfoundland and Labrador for a couple of days to a week to participate in the hunt.
He said you might get your six seals within a half-hour, or you could be a week waiting for the weather to turn favourable.
If that economic activity goes away, he said it will be felt, and not only in the small communities where the hunt is prosecuted.
"It affects car sales in Corner Brook," Casey said. "It affects grocery sales in Corner Brook. It affects hardware sales in Corner Brook and in the bigger centres."
"If a fellow in Twillingate makes $10,000 on the seal hunt, chances are a lot of that money is going to trickle down to the car dealerships in Gander or the grocery stores in Gander and so on. The same applies throughout the province."
Seal oil capsules are a major industry in this province and worldwide, said Casey, and the meat is a very healthy part of a balanced diet.
And, he said, seal meat is a delicacy appreciated by many. A friend recently dropped off 575 flippers, eight tote boxes worth, to Casey, who sent out an email to about 20 people. Within two hours, the boxes were empty and almost everyone wanted to know if there were carcasses to go with the flippers.
Casey said one of the problems with the industry is a sealer needs to have a lot of courses in marine safety in order to participate in the hunt, but an animal rights activist who wants to monitor the hunt only needs a permit from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He said they don't have to have the training to go where they want to.
"Our federal government allows individuals who have none of this to go to the ice with the swipe of a pen," Casey said. "They're allowed to go observe people doing their daily work to provide for their families, add to the economy and basically interfere with a person who's working doing their day-to-day job."
"The guy who's taking part in the seal hunt has got to have half a briefcase full of papers in order to be able to participate. They get a simple permit and they're allowed to go."
The seal of disapproval
Ed Smith
The Telegram
May 16, 2009
I have been a great supporter of the Olympics. Other Half and I spend many hours watching them, summer and winter, every two years. Can't wait for each year to pass so we can climb on the bandwagon or the sofa, whichever is more appropriate, and cheer on our Canadian teams.
We even appreciate great performances from other countries. Nothing political about us - unless Canadians are involved. We do refuse to cheer for the Iraqi and Afghan marksmen squads. No, we haven't seen them, but we wouldn't cheer for them if we did. Please don't quibble over irrelevant details.
Let's jump ahead to what is fast becoming the great non-event of our times: the annual seal hunt. For those of you who've been dead and buried for the past three weeks, I have to tell you that the commercial seal hunt is deader than you are.
You may not like to hear that, especially if you're a seal hunter. On the other hand, sealers know the truth of it better than anyone. They know the price of pelts may buy you enough gas to get out of the harbour, but it sure as hell won't get you back in. The Europeans have seen to that.
You do know by now that the EU Parliament has voted for a ban on all seal products, and no, they're not just talking about flippers. Not that many flipper dinners in France and Britain this time of year.
"All seal products" means primarily sealskin products. It does not include seal meat. You might as well try to sell cod tongues on the Riviera or fish and brewis in Paris.
I know it's supposed to be crass to say it even if we are excused for thinking it. But yes, you're right. These are the same European countries for whom a generation of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians bought freedom and paid for it with their blood.
I know the arguments against that attitude and normally I'd agree. But when I see the livelihood being wiped out of men whose fathers and uncles and grandfathers gave their lives - and would do so again - to preserve the way of life of these same people, my blood pressure starts to rise.
I wonder what my Uncle Ed, who gave his life when hardly out of his teens, would think if he were here today.
OK, how long are they supposed to remain grateful? Seems to me to be the same question his followers asked Jesus: how often should one forgive another? Should we expect them to vote against their conscience? No, but we can expect them to listen carefully to our people before taking the word of the likes of Heather Mills or Paul McCartney or Brigitte Bardot.
But they didn't, and for that I hold them accountable.
One might have expected that the Prime Minister, out of his great love for this province and its people, might have put up a bit of a stronger argument to the Europeans when he talked to them about free trade last week. But, as he himself said, he couldn't jeopardize other areas of trade with Canada by coming on too strong about seals.
That shouldn't surprise us too much. The same thing has been done over the years with foreign countries being allowed to rape and pillage our fish stocks. Fish were given away in their millions of metric tonnes in exchange for considerations for goods from other Canadian provinces.
Perhaps you were as pleasantly surprised as I when the Members of Parliament voted to have Canadian athletes wear a patch of sealskin on their uniforms during the Winter Olympics next year in BC. Well done, boys and girls!
But then our athletes reacted, as did the Canadian Olympic Committee. No way Jose! A variety of reasons were given. One young stalwart stated in no uncertain terms that he would not wear anything that encouraged the killing of baby seals. Wow! Straight to heaven for that bit of animal ethics alone.
It goes without saying, of course, that this young man wouldn't be caught dead in ski boots or skates made of leather. Certainly not! None of these athletes will be eating lamb or veal. A side trip to a local slaughterhouse should keep them off chicken and beef, at least for the duration of their stay. They'll just have to eat fish for protein.
I don't mean to compare these youngsters with seasoned European parliamentarians. The kids are just ignorant. So are the Europeans, of course, but there's less excuse for them.
It's been made clear on several occasions that the Canadian public isn't exactly enamored of the seal hunt. Given their druthers, they'd just as soon see everything east of Québec cut adrift. It's all "Down East" to them, anyway, and somewhat of an embarrassment when they visit abroad.
"Yes, my dear, those horrid little Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are still slaughtering those beautiful baby seals, but we don't have much to do with them, you know."
But then came the killer of them all. Some people in our own beloved capital city of St. John's were interviewed on the street. They were asked a simple question, "Would you give up (European) wines to protest their ban on seal products?"
The answers from our fellow Newfoundlanders were the final nail in the seal hunt coffin. Incredibly, all but one said a definite and resounding "No!" No way would they switch to Israeli, or Australian or South African or Californian or even Canadian wines to support the seal hunt. How much can we expect them to sacrifice, after all?
How silly are we now in light of that to expect the support of anyone else in this whole wide Earth!
Silly and stupid to think that we even deserve it.
Ed Smith lives in Springdale. His e-mail address is edsmith@nf.sympatico.ca
Seal hunt battle a losing cause
Times Colonist
May 16, 2009
Canada.com
A writer says he supports a seal hunt ban, but is against the hypocrisy of the European Union, particularly Spain, which still has bullfighting.
Senator Marc Harb recently proposed a bill that might offer a "made in Canada" solution to the seal hunt. Not one senator would second his bill, effectively "stonewalling" any debate on the seal slaughter.
I believe this was the last straw for the EU, whose citizens have been pressuring their parliamentarians for a ban on seal products for years.
Now the Canadian government is threatening action with the World Trade Organization. The EU has been gathering evidence for years that the slaughter is inhumane. Any action to the WTO will take years and will accomplish nothing except wasting more of Canadian taxpayers' money.
I am personally against, whaling, bullfighting, rodeos, wild animal circus acts (which were banned decades ago in Nanaimo) and all other such activities which use animals for amusement.
William Chemko
Nanaimo
© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist
Seal the deal
Time for Newfoundlanders to end their treks to the ice floes
Comment
By Greg Weston
May 7, 2009
While federal politicians are publicly turning the air blue over the European ban on Canadian seal products, it's a safe bet most would be just as happy if the boycott finally killed the controversial annual slaughter on the ice floes.
They may well get their wish.
While the 27 member countries of the European Union long ago ceased to be prime markets for Canadian sealskin, they are nonetheless home to the world's leading fashion houses.
If seal fur is taboo on the runways of Paris and Rome, you can bet it won't be in big demand elsewhere in the western world, either.
Even without the European ban, the two largest remaining international markets -- Russia and China -- have been drying up to the point of threatening the viability of the entire industry.
Like virtually all federal politicians, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised to go to the wall to help the Newfoundland sealers, and fight the European ban.
Why bother?
The issue certainly isn't to save the Newfoundland economy which, last time we checked, is now awash in oil revenues.
Nor is to protect the livelihoods of the sealers, most of whom are fishermen trying to make a bit of spare cash in off-season.
We are not talking the difference between prosperity and starvation here.
Various official reports on the industry indicate that at its peak, seal pelts were selling for around $100, up to 6,000 sealers were taking their quota, and total sales were over $15 million.
The St. John's Telegram reported this week that pelts are now selling for only $15, "the lowest it has been in years."
As a result, over 70% of all the usual sealing crews decided this year's seal slaughter wasn't worth the effort and stayed home.
Not surprisingly, the big winners have been thousands of young seals.
The Telegram reports that a full month into this year's hunt for a government-imposed quota of about 240,000 seals in the region, fewer than 40,000 have been killed.
Do the math, and ending the seal hunt altogether would cost a few thousand sealers roughly the equivalent of less than two weeks of unemployment insurance payments.
None of this is to dismiss the financial worth of the sealing industry to mainly low-income off-season fishermen. Every dollar is important.
Indeed, if the seal hunt were just another harvest, the Canadian government would be remiss if it didn't try to protect the industry from the European Union boycott.
But as every Canadian politician knows only too well, the annual carnage of cute on the ice floes off Newfoundland is hardly ordinary.
For over 100 years, the clubbing and gutting of seals has provoked raging debate in this country -- some of it factual; a lot of it emotional.
For instance, killing those cuddly white baby seals is already banned.
Yet, anti-sealing campaigns almost invariably feature white pups being clubbed to death and skinned, their carcasses dragged across the bloodied ice on the end of a pick.
Images
Reality is, even if it could be proved conclusively that slaughtering seals of any age is perfectly humane and ecologically necessary to control their numbers, a picture of the kill will always be worth more than a thousand words of rationalization.
That's why the Harper government is wasting time and money fighting the European ban as an international trade issue.
Even if Canada wins, so what? Anti-sealing organizations are already using the Internet to promote an international boycott of Canadian seafood exports, and even tourism to this country.
With any luck, a dying market will kill sealing before it seriously bloodies the whole country.
greg.weston@sunmedia.ca
National, global opinion favours end to seal hunt
By JIM CHAMBERS
ChronicleHerald.ca
Wed. Apr 15 - 6:09 AM
 A crowd rallies in Ottawa last month in support of the International Day of Action against Commercial Sealing. (Patrick Doyle / Canadian Press Images) |
I am writing in response to The Chronicle Herald’s coverage of the Protect Seals boycott, including Stephen Maher’s recent column "The bus driver’s attack: a completely acceptable, harmless counter-protest."
I am the owner of Prime Seafood LLC, a U.S. seafood distribution company which is part of the boycott of Canadian seafood organized by the Humane Society of the United States. I am also a marine biologist with over 35 years of national and international fishery conservation and management experience, most with the U.S. agency which manages marine fisheries.
In his recent column, Mr. Maher asserted that the "Humane Society has been caught lying about the effectiveness of an American boycott of Canadian seafood."
If anything, the Humane Society has been unduly modest about the impact of the boycott.
Since the boycott began, the value of Canadian snow crab exports to the U.S. has declined by more than $750 million. The value of seafood exports from Newfoundland and Labrador to the U.S. fell by 51 per cent. These figures come from Statistics Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Industry Canada.
DFO blames the lost export revenue first and foremost on exchange rates. This view doesn’t withstand examination. The U.S. dollar fell by 18 per cent in the period in question. Seafood exports from Newfoundland fell by 51 per cent. Exports from other industries in Newfoundland to the U.S. went up by 29 per cent. (If one includes the oil and gas extraction businesses, they were up by 94 per cent.) Either one can believe that exchange rates are singling out the seafood industry, or one can accept that other things are coming into play that are negatively impacting seafood exports and not exports from other industries.
Recently, the Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles held a meeting with U.S. seafood wholesalers. During the meeting, a salesman from a major Californian company said over half of his customers "flat out refuse to buy Canadian seafood." Representatives from other wholesalers echoed this message; large numbers of their customers (restaurants, hotels, casinos and grocery stores) won’t buy Canadian seafood until the commercial seal hunt ends. I hear this from my customers, too.
Over 5,000 grocery stores and restaurants are part of the boycott, including multi-billion-dollar companies such as Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Harris Teeter, and BI-LO. Collectively, we buy billions of dollars worth of seafood – far less of which comes from Canada these days. New U.S. companies join the boycott weekly. The boycott is now on its way to the EU.
No impact? No way.
The DFO’s position on this issue stretches credulity, and yet Mr. Maher accepts it without question. Ditto for statements about the "need" for the hunt. As for economic need – DFO data show that only 1.3 per cent of Newfoundland’s landed fishery in 2008 came from the seal hunt. Sealers earn the vast majority of their income from catching seafood, not killing seals.
As far as saving cod goes, DFO scientists concede that even if the entire seal population were eliminated, there is no reason to believe that the cod population would recover – that’s the consequence of severe overfishing.
Canada’s commercial seal hunt is the world’s largest slaughter of marine mammals, with more than one million baby seals killed in the past four years. Ninety-seven per cent are less than three months old when they are killed. Many have yet to eat their first solid meal when they are beaten to death. Each year, their suffering has been documented on film by the Humane Society, including seals cut open while writhing in pain, conscious seals impaled on steel spikes and dragged across the ice floes, animals skinned alive, and wounded seals left to suffer.
Mr. Maher states that he believes the commercial seal hunt is "… as humane, more or less, as farmyard practices, but if I were to learn that it does cause suffering to seals, I still wouldn’t care very much."
Last month, citing concern about cruelty, Russia announced a ban on slaughtering seals younger than one year old. International opinion, as well as the opinion of the vast majority of Canadian citizens, is overwhelmingly in favour of ending the inhumane slaughter of baby seals.
Here’s hoping Ottawa listens to them and not to Mr. Maher.
Jim Chambers is founder/owner of Prime Seafood in Kensington, Md.
Baby Seal Death Day
By Kathleen Parker
The Washington Post
Tuesday, April 14, 2009; 6:11 PM
It isn't every day that one's very own hakapik arrives in the mail.
It is probably reasonable to assume that I'm the only person on my block to be the un-proud possessor of the aptly named bludgeoning and hacking instrument used to slaughter baby seals. 'Tis the season.
April 15 may be tax and tea-party day in the U.S., but it's baby-seal death day in Canada. Although the season began March 23 (19,411 down), the largest phase was to begin Wednesday, during which sealers will destroy and skin another couple hundred thousand seals, most between 25 days and three months old.
It's a living. I guess.
Like most, I've known about the baby seal hunts for decades and have averted my gaze. From my fetal curl, I've merely wished feverishly that someone would put a stop to it.
I might have managed another year without weighing in on the world's largest maritime massacre if not for my hakapik, delivered compliments of PETA. It arrived innocuously enough in a flat, 5-foot long package.
Unsheathed, the hakapik is menacing -- like having a "Shining" Jack Nicholson crouched in the corner -- and seems more suitable to an exhibit of medieval torture instruments than to the office of someone who delivers to the outdoors (rather than squishes) visiting insects.
My hakapik -- a phrase I never expected to utter -- has a 42-inch long handle with a combo hammerhead/spike on the end. The hammer portion is used, theoretically, to crush the seal's skull, while the spike is used to haul the carcass away. (Older seals are usually shot with rifles.)
Those who favor hakapiks argue that they are efficient and humane. Efficient because they allow for a "clean kill," meaning the pelt isn't damaged. "Humane" because a properly delivered blow to the head causes instant, painless death.
Opponents of this gruesome drill claim it isn't possible to properly administer a blow to the head when one is standing on a slippery ice floe swinging a heavy club at a small moving animal. Consequently, at least some animals are not killed humanely -- or even killed at all before being skinned and gutted.
A 2007 European Food Safety Authority report concluded that effective killing doesn't always occur, causing animals pain and distress. Another 2007 report by scientists at the University of Bristol found "widespread disregard for the Marine Mammal Regulations" during seal hunts (though bashing the head of a defenseless baby hardly qualifies as "hunting").
The researchers said that a maximum of 15 percent of seals observed on videos were killed in a manner that conformed to the regulations and that violations were probably worse because they didn't have access to continuous sequences for all seals.
Andy Butterworth, senior research fellow, wrote that "although many of the seals observed were clearly wounded by the clubbing and shooting, sealers did not routinely monitor for unconsciousness (as required) befoe skinning them."
Too gruesome to consider, but then, hunters argue, so are slaughterhouses. The baby seal "harvest" is simply more visible than, say the factories where baby calves and lambs are destroyed for scaloppini and party chops. But does one cruelty justify another?
Increasingly, the answer is "no," as other countries follow the lead of Americans, who banned seal products in 1972.
As of March 18, Russia has banned its own seal hunt after the bear-hunting Vladimir Putin called sealing a "bloody industry." And, the European Parliament has adopted a declaration banning commercial seal products (but still allows for traditional hunting, e.g. Inuit). The Parliament plans to vote on a complete ban later this month, which could further emasculate the seal market.
In the meantime, market and other forces seem to be tilting favorably toward the baby seals. Pelt prices are down from $100 per animal in 2006 to just $15 this year, thus undermining government claims of the seals' economic importance.
In other news, which one may interpret as one wishes, the weather is making life difficult for sealers. Strong winds and freezing rain have been slowing them down. The pelts they seek so that human bipeds can be fashionably warm are secure for the time being on the animals who need them most.
Pressures, meanwhile, are mounting across the border where U.S. Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, recently introduced a resolution urging the Canadian government to end the commercial seal hunt.
Come on, Canada. See things Putin's way and I'll donate my hakapik to the museum of your choice.
kparker@kparker.com
Inuit on sealing: We want your mind, not your money
MARY SIMON
Globe and Mail
March 11, 2009 at 12:00 AM EDT
Sunday will mark another annual day of protest against the Canadian East Coast seal hunt. In various countries, anti-sealing protesters will urge their governments to ban the seal hunt and the import of seal products.
This year, protesters will no doubt take satisfaction in knowing that Belgium and the Netherlands have already defied world trade laws to ban the import of seal products and that the European Union Parliament is being pressed to do the same. Last week, an EU commission voted to amend the proposed legislation so it would, in effect, be a total ban on the import of seal products. Canadian Fisheries Minister Gail Shea reacted by vowing that Ottawa would take immediate action at the World Trade Organization in the event the amended legislation is passed later this year by the EU Parliament. I commended Canada's strong statement and repeated our intent to continue our traditional hunting practices.
While the target of animal-rights protesters is the seasonal killing of seals by commercial fishermen on the ice floes around Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the impact of the protests threatens, once again, to have painful consequences on Inuit communities scattered throughout the Canadian Arctic. Inuit in Greenland will also feel the pain.
Inuit are a maritime people. The sea and sea ice are our front yard. They are as much a part of our way of life as the family farm has been for the agrarian societies of this world. For most of us, the most important and reliable food since our arrival in the Arctic in ancient times has been the seal. We have hunted seals to sustain life itself in a world that is as harsh as it is beautiful.
We have harvested seals to feed ourselves, our children, our elders and the rest of our people in the Arctic. We have used seals to feed the dog teams that help us to hunt. We have used the pelts of seals to clothe ourselves and, in more recent times, to generate a modest level of cash from sales to the outside world. That flow of cash might not look like much to those who plan the EU's operating budget or who take in millions of dollars from members of the public through anti-sealing campaigns. But, for Inuit hunters, it often makes the difference between being able to pay for the costs of hunting in today's world - rifles, ammunition, a snowmobile and gas - or being rendered sedentary in the community.
For Inuit, hunting is not just about feeding families. It is also about sustaining our unique language and culture in a world that has all too often maligned or devalued them. The teaching of hunting skills from one generation to another is a way we build solidarity between generations and within families. The sharing of country food among households in communities is a way in which we show compassion for those who are ill, infirm or finding it hard to cope. Sharing is a way of reminding ourselves who we are as a people, what we value as a people, and what we have in common with the rest of the world.
Inuit may have been spared some of the gross injustices visited on those who lived or were brought to North America in the centuries that followed the first European explorations. But there is no doubt we were thoroughly colonized and marginalized. And we have suffered, and continue to suffer, from a range of debilitating social problems, including the worst overcrowding, tuberculosis and suicide rates in Canada. In recent years, we have worked hard to rebuild pride and confidence in ourselves, and to negotiate new arrangements with the federal government and development companies to restore an acceptable form of power sharing, and responsibility sharing, in and for the Arctic.
Yet, progress never comes easily and, for every step forward, we risk slipping back. For many Inuit, it is bewildering to witness international campaigns that vilify those who make use of seals to support the well-being of human communities. For our Inuit elders, this seems to be a perversion of a fundamental truth that says the value of human life must be the central touchstone to all systems of religion or ethics.
For younger Inuit, such campaigns seem to be exercises in highly selective and culturally bound sensitivities: It is okay for those who live in rich Western, urban societies to do things that have generated enormous hardships and insult for an indigenous hunting people, while very little self-examination is invested into the conditions of domestic animals processed in highly industrialized fashion for big city supermarkets. It is doubtful that a wild seal living in the Arctic would envy the life prospects of a factory-raised chicken.
Some animal-rights groups, like some governments and legislators in Europe, have been quick to say that their anti-sealing efforts are not aimed at the seal-hunting activities of Inuit, and that seal furs resulting from Inuit hunting should be exempt from such things as import bans. It is hard for Inuit to take any comfort in these promises. These assurances are issued in what appears to be willful ignorance that past anti-sealing activities have destroyed the markets for all seal pelts, whether taken by Inuit or others. They are issued without the prospect of any plausible machinery, methods or communications efforts that would somehow allow Inuit to continue to support themselves and our way of life in the Arctic with a measure of security. No, these assurances are all about salving troubled consciences, not offering respect and reasonable accommodation.
So, for those who will be joining in Sunday's anti-sealing protests, either directly or by sending money to animal-rights groups, the Inuit of Canada invite you to reconsider. Before investing your time, your money and your goodwill in such efforts, perhaps you might first satisfy yourself whether the groups organizing these protests have made any real effort to understand the Inuit way of life, or to take any real steps to avoid inflicting harm on us. Inuit are not seeking your donations. Rather, we ask Canadians to think through this issue, a more difficult but ultimately more enriching path for all of us.
Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, is a former Canadian ambassador for circumpolar affairs and a former ambassador to Denmark.
Shame on Canada for allowing the seal hunt
The Daily News
March 10, 2009
Many Canadians are not aware what happens every year between March and May in Newfoundland-Labrador because the media keep us largely in the dark. Yet around the globe, thousands of photos and videos inform people abroad about the cruelest massacre of marine mammals to occur on this planet.
Life for baby seals and their mothers starts out beautifully as they rest together on the ice. The snow-white babies seem to enjoy their lives as they look around their pristine environment and begin to play with their mothers and other seal pups. However, as soon as a baby is 12-days old and its coat starts to change, paradise transforms into hell.
Boats arrive and men hurry to the ice floes, swinging their hakapiks in the air and down onto the heads of the innocent pups, immobilizing one after another. The babies cry in agony, their mothers wale in despair trying to protect their precious pups. Then these "men" hurry back to tear the skins off the babies -- many of them are still alive.
This show of cruelty and cowardice that repeats itself hundreds of thousands of times within a few weeks, is enough to turn the world against Canada. Many Europeans tell us that such cruelty breeds hatred for Canada and Canadians. They call us cowards because we do not dare to confront our leaders, and look on in apathy while sealers destroys not only the animals, but this country's image once and for all.
Most Canadians are intelligent and compassionate people. If they come up with the courage to tell governments to stop the insanity on ice of Newfoundland-Labrador, Canada may again become the respected nation it once was.
Inge Bolin
Nanaimo
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Letter: Help stop harp seal hunting
Published: March 10, 2009 03:02 am
The Eagle-Tribune online
To the editor:
Once again the world's largest slaughter of marine mammals, the harp seals, will take place in just a few weeks. Hundreds of thousands of baby seal pups will be slaughtered in cruel ways and only for the use of their fur! Common techniques of killing are beating them to death with a bat. Some of the pups are so young and defenseless they have not learned to swim and have no means of escape.
The United States Humane Society has been extremely diligent in their hard work to ban the trade in seal products in Europe.
If you wish to stop this cruel slaughter, please contact your local supermarkets and restaurants and ask them to ban purchases of Canadian seafood.
Your pledge is a powerful tool in helping to end the cruel seal hunt of innocent baby seal pups.
Please visit www.humanesociety.org/protectseals for more information.
EILEEN WHALEN
Newburyport
No one likes the seal hunt
The Gazette
Published: Tuesday, March 10
I don't support the commercial seal hunt. My friends don't support the commercial seal hunt, my family doesn't. I can probably go out on a limb and say that most people I know in Montreal don't.
So why do my elected officials support it? Why do they think that funding a slaughter is a good use of my tax dollars?
I would like my MP to tell me why my taxes are better spent funding sealers than on infrastructure or health care? I think we all deserve to know.
Lucas Solowey
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2009
Seal of disapproval
The Gazette
Published: Saturday, March 07
Oh no not again - or should I say still? No wonder newspapers are in trouble. They just don't evolve! One just has to read your March 6 editorial "Ottawa must defend seal hunters' livelihoods."
Basically The Gazette has been saying this same thing for more than 40 years - that we must protect a handful of part-time jobs, fewer than 6,000 people earning $1,000 each a season if they're lucky. In the meantime the government (read taxpayer) is spending millions (more likely billions) to promote and defend this international black eye.
More than 20 years ago an in-depth study claimed that the economics of the hunt simply didn't make sense and recommended a licence buyout. Had the government listened (too much to expect) we would all be well ahead of the game today and Canada's reputation would be intact.
Anne Streeter
Mount Royal
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2009
LETTERS
The intrinsic value of seals
Seals are not simply government property.
05.03.2009 / 00:00 CET
EuropeanVoice.com
The Canadian government, politicians of all stripes and even the odd government scientist remain comfortable denying reality, claiming that Canada's commercial seal hunt is “humane”.
These thoughts were evoked during a hearing on trade in seal species organised by the European Parliament's internal market and consumer protection committee in January, as part of its deliberations on the European Commission's proposed ban on trade in seal products within the EU (‘MEPs to vote on partial ban on seal products', 25 February-4 March). A vote on that proposal is expected on 1 April, about the same time that Canada's 2009 commercial seal slaughter is to begin.
It is time to acknowledge that this is not just a debate about humane killing or about conservation, sustainable use, economic necessity, subsidies or precautionary management. It is a political debate grounded in ethics.
Seals, like dogs, think, feel and relate in ways that are appropriate to their kind. Like us, dogs and seals have an individual worth independent of the use anyone might have for them. This is called “intrinsic value”. That wildlife species have intrinsic value is already recognised in a number of national wildlife policy documents (including Canada's) and conservation agreements.
Seals are not simply government property or a “natural resource” to do with as we please. Seals are sentient creatures that we ought to treat with care and respect. This means thinking beyond whether a particular killing technique is humane or not. It means considering the well-being of seals as individuals, as well as populations, and as functional components of marine ecosystems. Is Canada's or any other commercial seal hunt morally defensible in the 21st century?
From:
David Lavigne
William Lynn
International Fund for Animal Welfare
Seal hunt circus rolls into Ottawa
STEPHEN MAHER LETTER FROM OTTAWA
Thu. Mar 5 - 4:46 AM
ChronicleHerald.ca
ON MONDAY, a European Union parliamentary committee voted 25-7 to ban the import of Canadian seal products — a ban that is expected to be finalized by the European council in June.
This could slaughter the market for seal pelts, because although the markets for pelts are mostly in Russia and China, the world fashion industry is headquartered in Paris and Milan, and a ban could bump seal products from those crucial runways.
This threatens to take money out of the pockets of some of the poorest Canadians — the fishermen of isolated East Coast communities.
The EU vote prompted a fair bit of seal-related foolishness here in Ottawa.
First, Mac Harb, a Liberal senator from Ottawa, introduced a private member’s bill to end the hunt.
Mr. Harb introduced his bill Tuesday, but he couldn’t find another senator willing to second it — perhaps because the other senators were afraid one of the Newfoundlanders in the chamber would come after them with a hakapik — so his motion died.
After the triumphant non-introduction of Mr. Harb’s bill, the International Fund for Animal Welfare held a news conference in Ottawa with big-shot lawyer Clayton Ruby, who praised Mr. Harb’s "incredible leadership and courage."
"This is truly a historic moment — a moment that marks the beginning of the inevitable end to Canada’s commercial seal hunt," said Mr. Ruby.
The animal welfare organization operates around the world, doing fine work to save endangered wild animals. The harp seal herd, estimated at 5.5 million, is not endangered, but nothing motivates donors like photos of seals, so animal welfare groups use seal pictures to wring donations out of soft-hearted animal lovers and then use the money to pay for the work they actually care about: saving really endangered animals.
The Conservatives, who are keen to promote any story that isn’t about how the economy is falling apart under their watch, seized on the fact that a Liberal senator had introduced this bill, and used it to savage Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. Mr. Ignatieff was quick to tell reporters he supports the seal hunt, but that didn’t stop the Tories from saying repeatedly that he doesn’t.
The Fisheries Department issued a news release Tuesday from recently appointed Newfoundland Tory Senator Fabian Manning: "Sealers need to know that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal party want to ban the Canadian seal hunt," which is, I think, pretty much a lie.
On Wednesday, one of the world’s most radical animal rights groups, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, held a protest on the Rideau Canal, splashing the ice with red dye and holding up banners reading Stop the Seal Slaughter.
PETA, which is so radical it’s against the dairy industry, wants to embarrass Canada in the run-up to the Winter Olympics.
The group’s website says that "more than 200,000 baby seals are slaughtered every year." It contains a video clip skilfully edited to give the impression that whitecoats are being killed. In fact, whitecoats — what we think of as baby seals — have been protected since 1987.
Colleen Higgins, a PETA worker up from Atlanta for the protest, said — in defiance of any facts — that baby seals are being killed.
"Time and time again we’ve seen footage from the ice floes and these babies are losing their lives before they’ve had their first solid meal, before they’ve swam yet, and they’re hit with boat hooks and left to choke on their own blood until they die," she said.
She promised to send me the evidence to back her claims but did not manage to do so on Wednesday.
And she told me I shouldn’t wear my rabbit-fur hat.
"You shouldn’t, you know, perpetrate the image that fur should be worn," she said. "There are some really great alternatives that don’t end animals’ lives."
As Ms. Higgins said that, Nancy Etheridge, an older woman from Newfoundland, skated up and berated her.
"What do you know personally about the seal hunt?" asked Ms. Etheridge.
"Quite a bit," said Ms. Higgins.
"Well, I grew up with the seal hunt and I can tell you I’ve gone on many farms where I saw chickens and cows slaughtered in worse manner than seals," said Ms. Etheridge, her voice shaking with anger. "My family depends on the seal hunt and I take great offence when I see these things coming out. Because if you never grew up with that, you don’t know how they’re slaughtered. You get one picture that’s out of proportion and you go out and campaign against it."
( smaher@herald.ca)
Stop seal hunt
Published Wednesday February 11th, 2009
Letter to the editor
Miramichi Leader - Online Edition
I am writing to you, Ms. O'Neill-Gordon, to convey my strong objection to the forthcoming slaughter of grey seals in Nova Scotia and the commercial harp seal hunt which will start up once again next month.
Of great concern is the fact that the grey seal hunt started last week on Hay Island, which is located in a protected provincial nature reserve. The decision to allow the commercial killing of grey seals in this area is a violation of Nova Scotia's Wilderness Areas Protection Act and a shameless attempt by the provincial government to appease the fishing industry lobby.
Meanwhile, the commercial harp seal hunt, the largest slaughter of marine mammals in the world, continues to be a bloody stain on our country's international reputation. The seal hunt is misrepresented to the public. Claims that the hunt is part of the cultures of Newfoundland and Labrador are a cloak for this commercial industry. With over 11,000 sealing licenses issued in 2001, this cannot be considered a local cultural event. It's commerce just like any other industry.
Not only is the hunt cruel, with seal pups being beaten, shot and often skinned alive, but Canada's animal welfare regulations are not being followed or enforced. The Department of Fisheries, which oversees the hunt, doesn't punish hunters who kill the seals inhumanely or who exceed their quota. It ignores the abuse of animals and rewards overkilling with higher quotas.
With global markets for seal fur rapidly declining, and an international boycott of Canadian seafood costing us more than the value of the sealing industry, it would surely be in the best interests of sealers to offer them a buyout of their sealing licenses and end this massacre once and for all.
I am disgusted that the Canadian government is still allowing these cruel, senseless hunts to continue. Enough is enough. Fairly compensate the fishermen, but end the seal hunts now, starting with the unlawful activity that is taking place on Hay Island.
After voting for Charles Hubbard for years while he did absolutely nothing to help this cause (his office actually sent me a letter stating that the hunt was a good thing for the Canadian economy), I voted for you in the recent election in the hope that you would perhaps take a stand others are so unwilling to take. I truly hope that you will fight against this cause. Thank you for your consideration of this important matter.
Sincerely,
Les McLaughlin
Harpseals.org 2000-2009 All rights reserved