Developing world hunger can save the Atlantic Canada seal hunt?!

Canadian Senate’s Standing Committee on Fisheries & Oceans issues arguably the most absurd recommendations for reviving the seal hunt yet

ST. JOHNS, Newfoundland––Sealers have again been shooting and clubbing harp seals off Newfoundland and Labrador since April 8, 2024,  but the outside world barely knows it.

Newfoundland sealers expect to kill between 30,000 and 40,000 of a seal population estimated by Fisheries & Oceans Canada at 4.7 million.

The annual massacre has,  however,  dwindled to near invisibility on the global scale of animal exploitation.

30,000 seals per year killed of 400,000 quota

“Fisheries managers allow some 400,000 harp seals to be harvested annually,”  lamented CBC news when the 2024 hunt began,  “but the allowable catch hasn’t been taken in the past 15 years.”

In fact,  “In recent years, approximately 30,000 harp seals have been commercially harvested annually.

“The United States has had a ban on seal products since 1972,  the European Union banned seal products in 2009,  and the Chinese market also has restrictions,”  the  CBC mourned.

CBC,  please note,  is the television network owned by the Canadian government.

Politics keep the seal hunt going

The Canadian government also boosts and subsidizes the dwindling sealing industry in many other ways,  for one reason only:  though the Atlantic Canada seal hunt has been a national embarrassment since circa 50 years before Canada actually became a nation in 1949,  the partisan political division among the Canadian provincial delegations in Parliament is perpetually such that only one national prime minister has ever been elected without substantial support from Newfoundland,  the sealing industry hub.

The exception,  Brian Mulroney of Bai Comeau,  Quebec,  was elected in 1984 with a rare tide of Quebec support for his Progressive Conservative Party.

Mulroney responded to international pressure––and losses from lack of demand for seal pelts––by suspending the Atlantic Canada seal hunt in 1984.

Mulroney left office in 1993.  The suspension held until 1995.

Seal hunt opposed by marine life experts since before 1900

Organized ecological and humane opposition to the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt emerged as early as 1900,  mentioned by William Hornaday (1854-1937),  who in 1899 became founding director of the New York Zoological Society and the Bronx Zoo.

The pioneering ichthyologist David Starr Jordan (1851-1931),  for whom the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration research ship David Starr Jordan was named,  was an early and outspoken opponent of seal-clubbing.

So was Sir George Baden-Powell,  who helped to instill in his younger brother Robert the love of nature that inspired Robert to found the Boy Scouts.

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in 1911 endorsed into law a set of seal conservation measures that 62 years later were combined with whale and dolphin protection legislation to become the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Brian Davies

But opposition to the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt only became an international cause celebré after then-New Brunswick SPCA field secretary Brian Davies formed the Save The Seals fund in 1965.

Davies scored his first global media coup on March 26, 1968,   when the British newspaper Daily Mirror published a full-page image of a whitecoat seal pup gazing up at the club that was about to kill her,  captioned “The price of a seal skin coat.”

The photo was taken by then-CBC camera man Stephen Best.

Amid the furor that followed,  the Canadian government threatened to cancel the nonprofit status of the New Brunswick SPCA.

Davies resigned,  took the Save The Seals Fund to Yarmouthport,  Massachusetts in 1969,  and renamed it the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Stephen Best

Davies in 1973 funded Best to direct,  film,  and edit Seal Song,  a 30-minute documentary,  then hired Best full-time in 1980.

“Between 1980 and 1984,”  Best recalled to ANIMALS 24-7 in 2022,  “I developed and managed various political,  election,  and public relation campaigns in Germany,  the United Kingdom, and Belgium that eventually achieved the 1983 ban on the import of baby harp and hooded seal products into the European Community.”

            (See International animal advocacy influencer Brian Davies dies at 87.)

Best went on to serve in executive capacities with Care for the Wild and the Toronto Humane Society,  cofounded the International Wildlife Coalition,  and cofounded the Animal Protection Party of Canada.  He also made the film Saving Dinah.

(See Five paws up for Stephen Best dog rescue film “Saving Dinah.”)

“Sealing the Future:  A Call to Action”

“The Canadian Senate’s Standing Committee on Fisheries & Oceans just issued a report on sealing,  Sealing the Future: A Call to Action,”  Best alerted ANIMALS 24-7 on May 23,  2024.

“In it,”  Best alleged,  “the committee vilified animal and environmental protection charities and even called for their charitable status to be revoked if they were opposed to the Canadian commercial seal hunt.”

This of course was the same threat that indirectly created the International Fund for Animal Welfare,  leading global opposition to the seal hunt for 55 years.

“Rife and riddled with falsehoods”

“The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries & Oceans did not hear from any witnesses representing animal and environmental protection charities or even non-profits,”  observed Best,  “but slandered them nonetheless.

“It should be kept in mind,”  Best recommended,  “that nowhere in Sealing the Future: A Call to Action are there any examples of any misinformation/disinformation being disseminated today by any Canadian animal or environmental protection charity.

“However,  the report is rife and riddled with falsehoods,  misinformation,  disinformation, and personal attacks by politicians and seal hunt advocates from the commercial fishing,  fur fashion,  and tourist trinket industries.

“All credible science is ignored”

“The findings and recommendations of the report,”  Best concluded,  “are entirely founded on the biases and perceptions of interested stakeholders and all credible science is ignored.”

Best also shared a link to Sealing the Future,  at which anyone may verify the accuracy of his criticism:  https://sencanada.ca/…/parl-44-1/pofo-sealing-the-future.

Speaking for itself,  the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries & Oceans in Sealing the Future whines that,  “Seal harvesting is no longer economically viable for most fishers.”

The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries & Oceans,  at hearings from which seal hunt critics were excluded “heard several statistics that emphasized the impact seals can have on fish populations – including that seals eat 22 times as much fish as is commercially harvested,  and that an adult seal can eat 1,000 kilograms of fish and seafood per year and in some cases more,”  from which it “determined that Fisheries & Oceans Canada is unable or unwilling to make any conclusions about the effects of seals on fisheries.”

Doublespeak

“However,”  Sealing the Future adds,  “the committee did learn that most seal populations in Canada are stable and able to sustain well-managed commercial harvests on all of our coasts.”

Contrast this purported acquisition of knowledge with the bulk of Sealing the Future,  which emphasizes that “more study is needed” because existing data does not really support the pre-ordained pro-sealing conclusions that the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries & Oceans would prefer to have reached.

“A lack of data and scientific evidence often seem to be used by Fisheries & Oceans Canada as reasons for inaction,”  Sealing the Future objects,  “even though anecdotal evidence that seals are negatively impacting fish stocks and ecosystems seems abundant.  The precautionary approach must be used in this situation and seal populations must be actively managed by Fisheries & Oceans Canada.”

An authentic precautionary approach would mean doing nothing in absence of supporting evidence.

The data

Among what little actual data Sealing the Future includes is that,  “Fisheries and Oceans Canada, in a report published in 2009, estimated the British Columbia harbor seal population to be 105,000 seals,  a population the committee heard has been stable for over 25 years,”  in other words not growing.

“Fisheries & Oceans Canada has stated,”  Sealing the Future says,  “that the Northwest Atlantic harp seal population,  estimated at 7.6 million seals in 2019,  is deemed recovered from its pre-hunt levels and that populations of other seal species are also said to have stabilized.  The Northwest Atlantic grey seal population,  which continues to increase,  was estimated at 366,400 seals in 2021.”

Also,  “As noted in a 2017 Library of Parliament publication,  “Canadian seal landed values peaked in 2006,  with meat and pelt values exceeding $30 million.”

“Reduction of seal pelt prices & demand”

“Following 2006,  however,  there was a significant decline in seal pelt landings,  and a reduction of seal pelt prices and demand.”

That seal populations may have recovered and stabilized,  after a decade of massacres of unprecedented size and ferocity by out-of-work fishers who blamed seals for the collapse of the overfished Atlantic Canada cod stocks,  scarcely constitutes an argument for re-escalating killing that proved to be misdirected,  misinformed,  and so unprofitable as well that the industry collapsed,  despite a Canadian government green light to continue full speed ahead.

Pressuring nonprofits already failed

As Best mentioned,  the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries & Oceans “recommends that the Government of Canada urgently review and amend the Income Tax Act and all other related acts,  as needed,  to ensure that registered Canadian charities and non-profit organizations that produce or promote misinformation and/or disinformation about the seal harvest or seal products industry have their tax-exempt status revoked.”

Overlooked is that as well as failing to silence the International Fund for Animal Welfare,  this tactic failed to silence the Animal Defence League of Canada and the Fur Bearers Protection Association,  among others who surrendered nonprofit status rather than shut up about the seal massacres,  and who remain active several decades later.

Seeks propaganda campaigns

Sealing the Future predictably argues for both national and international propaganda campaigns in defense of sealing,  as earlier reports from the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries & Oceans have at frequent intervals at least since 1980,  and calls upon the Canadian government  “to work toward the removal of trade barriers and the development of new markets.

“More than 30 countries have issued import bans on commercial seal products, primarily due to historical concerns that are no longer valid because of improved management practices and regulations,”  Sealing the Future asserts.

“These countries include all European Union countries,  the United States,  Mexico,  and India,”  Sealing the Future acknowledges.

“The most economically significant ban was the one instituted by the European Union in 2009,  which banned the importation and sale of seal products,  with the exception of those resulting from traditional hunts by indigenous communities.

“Part of complex ecosystems”

Admits Sealing the Future,  “Overall,  the committee heard that seals on Canada’s East and West Coasts are part of complex ecosystems and that their place within those ecosystems is not scientifically well understood.  Witnesses explained that,  in the past,  seal populations were heavily commercially harvested in both Atlantic and Pacific Canada and that recent population increases are the result of  population recovery.

“Witnesses also explained that the effect the increasing seal populations and climate change are having on ecosystem balance and food webs is difficult to predict and varies from region to region.  In addition,  the committee often heard that seals are opportunistic feeders and change their diets according to prey availability,  possibly making them more adaptable than other species within these various ecosystems.”

Non-sequiturs

This appears to be intended support for killing seals along the west coast of Canada in the name of saving salmon,  as advocated by the Pacific Balance Pinniped Society.

(See Advocate for shooting seals turns to pushing hunt for Sasquatch.)

But Sealing the Future stops short of making fools of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries & Oceans members to quite that extent.

Not that Sealing the Future avoids non-sequiturs such as that,  “All the seal harvesters the committee heard from echoed the point that Canada’s seal harvest is sustainable and humane.”

Predictably self-serving witness statements,  offered without cross-examination,  can scarcely be admitted to any court as credible evidence.

Objects to “oversight” instead of promotion

Sealing the Future goes on to complain that while “The committee believes it is important to highlight that the connection people across Canada have to seals and the seal harvest,”  this “may not be well understood across Canada,  including within Government of Canada departments and agencies.”

For example,  Sealing the Future says,  “Zoya Martin,”  representing the Government of Nunavut,  a Far North Canadian territory,  “explained that Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada does not promote seal meat products as it does other sources of protein (e.g., poultry, pork, or beef) and that there is no Canadian federal department advocating for seal proteins.  Zoya Martin further explained that Fisheries and Oceans Canada sees its role as a regulator and not as an advocate for the seal products industry.  The committee views this oversight as blatantly unfair.”

“Government of Canada is not doing enough”

Further,  “When Canada hosted the 19th Canada-European Union Leaders’ Summit in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador in November 2023,  Canadian seal products were not included in the original agenda. The committee believes that,  at present, Fisheries & Oceans Canada,  and by extension the Government of Canada,  is not doing enough to encourage and promote Canada’s seal products industry at home or abroad.”

Sealing the Future argues that the Canadian government should pressure the U.S. to amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act “to exclude healthy Canadian seal populations” from coverage,  and should try to undo “onerous reporting requirements imposed by the administration of the Indigenous Exemption of the [European Union] Regulation on Trade in Seals Products,”  amounting to safeguards to ensure that seal products and byproducts said to come from indigenous hunters––a tiny minority of all sealers,  even today––really do.

Junketing

“Paul Irngaut (Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.) suggested that Inuit organization representatives,  along with federal government officials,  could travel to countries” Sealing the Future mentions,  “in an effort to change their minds about Canada’s seal harvest,”  without mentioning that generations of similar delegations have already junketed all over Europe and Asia as unsuccessful fronts for the Canadian sealing and fur industries for more than 35 years.

“The committee does not support increasing the seal harvest when there is no available market for the end product or a harvest that does not fully utilize the animal,”  Sealing the Future states in passing.

Meanwhile back in Newfoundland,  “Between 2018 and 2022,  only 1% of the total allowable catch was landed for the grey seal harvest and only 7% of the TAC was landed for the harp seal harvest.”

“Sell seal meat to the developing world”

Translation:  Canadians no more want dead seals on their plates or in their closets than do Americans,  Europeans,  or Chinese,  attempts to sell seals to China having been a resounding flop.

But maybe dead seals can be sold to the impoverished developing world,  Sealing the Future hopes:  “Longer-term goals could include marketing seal meat to countries suffering from protein shortages and developing seal products that would be appropriate to fill these nutritional gaps.”

The likelihood of selling seal meat to starving nations such as landlocked,  equatorial South Sudan is approximately equal to the prospects for raising the Titanic,  which broke up and sank 350 miles from Newfoundland on April 15,  1912.

And so is the likelihood of the Canadian government successfully reviving the sealing industry,  no matter how much money it throws at the effort.

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