Why Canada is never going to stop killing seals

It’s sealing season in Canada. This means that, once again, activists are out in strength to decry Canadians as baby-killers and, in some cases, ISIL. On Tuesday, Canada’s strained relationship with India got just a bit worse when India banned the import of seal skins (although, for obvious reasons, they were never a major sealskin market). The National Post’s Tristin Hopper offers a quick guide to one of the world’s most embattled hunts. What’s true, what’s a myth and why Canadians will never, ever stop doing this.

MORE THAN JUST MEAT

Whether it’s the European Union or the International Fund for Animal Welfare, seal hunting opponents usually have a common mantra: They want to shut down the “commercial” hunt while preserving “subsistence” sealing for Inuit hunters. However, Inuit aren’t just eating seal, they also depend heavily on seal pelt sales and are hit hardest by bans and boycotts. “They’re still picturing little Eskimos in igloos with no need for money,” filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril said of seal hunting opponents in her pro-seal-hunting documentary Angry Inuk. In 1983, the European Union banned the importation of seal pup products. Although Inuit did not hunt the products mentioned — and were even included in a special exemption — the ban nevertheless prompted a worldwide collapse in demand for seal products. Overnight, Arctic seal hunting revenues plummeted, nomadic hunters were forced to settle into fixed communities and the region’s already-high suicide rates became among the worst on the planet. “It was our Great Depression,” said Arnaquq-Baril.

IT USED TO BE MUCH WORSE

Humane practices have improved markedly since global opposition first ramped up in the 1970s. Nets are no longer used to drown seals, hunters are barred from entering breeding areas and licensing processes have prevented the hunt from being flooded with inexperienced amateurs. These days, no Atlantic Coast sealer takes to the water without first attending mandatory workshops on humane practices. However, humane reforms have had little effect on the resolve of activists to ban commercial sealing outright. Proposals for a moreregulated hunt were notably rejected with the European Union’s 2009 blanket ban on seal products.

THERE’S NO SHORTAGE

A persistent myth is the notion that Canadians are somehow wiping seals off the planet. According to one leaflet from Humane Society International, Canada’s “seal slaughter” is “not sustainable.” But Canadian seals are doing absolutely fine. Harp seals form the majority of the Atlantic hunt, and in 2012, the Canadian government estimated there were 7.7 million of them on the Atlantic coast. Harp seal populations did hit historic lows in the mid-20th century, dropping as low as 1.5 million in 1978. But they’ve now rebounded so successfully that their populations are almost as large as they were when much of Canada was still New France. For context, in 2016 there were 3.38 million beef cows in Alberta.

ARE SEALS EATING COD?

And now it’s time for a misconception from the prosealing camp. Harp seal populations have exploded since the 1992 cod moratorium, leading to a persistent notion that hungry seals are delaying the return of the cod fishery, and that sealing is a righteous cull. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, meanwhile, has consistently pooh-poohed the idea, noting that harp seals don’t eat a lot of cod—and that cod stocks have been rebounding in tandem with the harp seal recovery. There is a 2012 study from the Bedford Institute of Oceanography endorsing the notion that grey seals could be eating significant quantities of cod. Nevertheless, the grey form a small proportion of the annual seal hunt.

IT’S A LIVING

While it would be possible to replace sealing revenue with a negligible outlay of the federal budget, defenders often aren’t standing up for the economics of seal so much as a way of life. In a Canada where Indigenous communities have suffered greatly by losing touch with traditional ways of making a living, Inuit are determined to hang on to one of their oldest links to the land. “When I see sealskin, I see an ethical and sustainable economy that feeds people,” said Arnaquq-Baril in Angry Inuk. The same is true in Newfoundland and Labrador, where sealers often come from communities decimated by fishing closures and economic exodus to Alberta. It’s why, in Ottawa, seal hunting is one of the few issues on which virtually every politician can safely agree. Seal is served in the Parliament Hill cafeteria. At least one governor-general has eaten raw seal heart. And when parliament discussed the creation of a National Seal Products Day last April, virtually the entire chamber, regardless of region or party, united in its love of all things seal.

NO ONE IS KILLING BABY SEALS

This is, bar none, the most persistent and widespread myth about the Canadian seal hunt. Every year, antiseal hunt literature is almost guaranteed to include images of white-coated infant harp seals. This is despite the fact that Canada has banned the killing of whitecoated seals since 1987, and that the Inuit never killed white coats. Even if organizations don’t trade in images of white seals, they will still lean heavily on the term “baby seals.” “Each spring, the Canadian government authorizes fishermen to club or shoot to death hundreds of thousands of baby seals for their fur,” writes the Humane Society of the United States. This is a reference to the fact that the vast majority of harp seals killed are between one and 3½ months old. However, some context might be in order. Those rotisserie chickens at the grocery store were likely alive for only 40 days. The average pack of bacon comes from a pig that was only on Earth for four months.