The 1972 U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act bans imports or sales of all marine mammal products, regardless of the conservation status of the species, negatively impacting the economies and cultural traditions of indigenous peoples in the High North.
Key reads: Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada. Reports on Seals: Links to the latest management plan, the government’s response to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans report on Seals, and more. Also from the Department: Understanding Seals and Sealing in Canada and Information to Media: Atlantic Canada seal hunt myths and realities (PDF format, March 2005). For all breaking news on sealing, visit the website of the Seals and Sealing Network.
Is the Seal Hunt Humane?
Improving humane practice in the Canadian harp seal hunt. A report of the Independent Veterinarians’ Working Group on the Canadian Harp Seal Hunt, August 2005.
Animal welfare and the harp seal hunt in Canada. Daoust, P. et. al, The Canadian Veterinary Journal, 2002 September; 43(9): 687-694.
Sealing in Nunavut : A Profile
Provided by the Fisheries and Sealing Division, Nunavut Department of the Environment
Nunavut, Canada’s newest Territory has a population of 27,000 people (23,000 of them Inuit) living in 28 small communities in an area covering 1,000,000 square kilometers, more than twice the size of Texas. For thousands of years, seals have been a vital resource for survival in a very demanding environment.
IT IS ILLEGAL IN THE U.S. TO OWN ONE OF THESE PLUSH TOYS. CAN YOU GUESS WHICH ONE?
It is legal in the U.S. to own the one on the left, illegal in the U.S. to own the one on the right. Why? Because the toy on the right is made from sealskin, a natural, renewable resource harvested since time immemorial by the indigenous peoples of the Arctic. … more.
Support for the Seal Hunt in Canada
June 1, 2010: Canadians say “Yes” to environmentally-friendly seal hunting. Fur Institute of Canada press release. (Outside link)
From Understanding Seals and Sealing in Canada, Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
When asked initially, four in ten Canadians (40 percent) say they support the seal hunt, either strongly (9 percent) or somewhat (31 percent).
However, the majority of Canadians (54 percent) express initial opposition to the hunt with roughly equal proportions either somewhat (28 percent) or strongly (26 percent) opposing it. Five percent of respondents do not offer an opinion on this question. Perceptions about the current seal population and sustainability concerns are critical factors in a person’s decision to either support or oppose the seal hunt.
Support for the seal hunt increases to majority levels when Canadians are informed that the current federal policy on seal hunting requires that no nursing seals are hunted, that it is done in a humane manner, that the quotas are set at sustainable levels and that no large commercial vessels are used. Two-thirds of Canadians (68 percent overall, 22 percent strong support) support a seal hunt that is conducted within these criteria. Only one-quarter of Canadians (26 percent) continue to oppose the hunt, either somewhat (17 percent) or strongly (9 percent), under these conditions.
Resources
MMPA – the Act + Government Resources:
- National Marine Fisheries Service, includes overview of MMPA, annual reports to Congress, MMPA reauthorization, MMPA Buletin, and more.
- Dept. of the Environment, Environmental Policy & Guidance, MMPA
Articles and Opinion Pieces:
- Hunters fear seal bans will hurt industry, by Stephanie McDonald, Northern News Services. (Aug. 13, 2007)
- (Nunavut’s) Greens not opposed to aboriginal sealing, says candidate. CBC News. (Jan. 16, 2006)
- Dead wrong, baby; Animal-rights movement hits new low. By Brian Jones, editor, The Sunday Telegram, St. John’s, Newfoundland. (Dec. 9, 2005)
- What Motivates Seal Hunt Protest Groups? By Myles Higgins, first published by Canada Free Press. (September 2005) Outside link to Man In Nature.
- Sleek seal is fashion’s “in” skin : Body-conscious buyers drive price of pelt to record high. National Post report, reproduced with permission. (Jan. 4, 2005)
- Nunavut flips over jump in seal price. Pelts set record at auction. By Bob Weber for the Canadian Press. (Dec. 27, 2004)
- Seal skin fashion to boost Canada’s fur trade. The BBC reports from the 22nd North American Fur and Fashion Exposition. (May 5, 2004)
- Humane? Canada seal hunt centers on question. Video of hunters used in battle between government, activists. By Miguel Llanos, MSNBC. (Apr. 23, 2004)
- So What’s Wrong with Clubbing Seals? Boris Johnson, MP and editor of The Spectator, for the Daily Telegraph (UK); retitled here as “Who will defend the seal-clubbers?” (Apr. 15, 2004)
- PETA’s War on the World’s Dispossessed Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, considers the damage done by fur opponents to the sealers of Canada. (Feb. 7, 2003)
- Deep Impact : The Shades of Gray Series Series of seven articles by The Phoenix New Times on the North Pacific gray whale, its socio-economic importance to the varied people who live along its migration path, and the politics behind everything from supplying whale meat to Siberian fox farms, to building a giant salt plant in Baja California. (October 2002)
- How Can Anyone Kill a Seal? How Can Anyone Possibly Kill a Whale? “These are natural questions from people who have spent their lives in populous western cities. To the peoples from northern regions, these questions provoke no more concern than the question, ‘How can anyone ever kill a pig or a cow?’” Statement from the West Nordic Council to mark its theme for 2001, “West Nordic Hunting Culture”. Outside link to “Man In Nature”. (Apr. 27, 2001)
- Wake Up Call Tina Jagros, director of the Canadian Outdoor Heritage Alliance, warns that campaigns against sealing are every resource user’s problem. (2001; Outside link to Man In Nature)
- The PR Problems of Canada’s “Other” Seal Hunt : The Inuit, who depend on seals for food, seek a market for the skins By Ruth Walker. “Ever since the first contact with “the West,” going back to early European explorers like Martin Frobisher in the 1570s, the question for the Inuit has been, ‘What can we sell to the world?’ As dependent on imports as ever, the people of the new Canadian territory of Nunavut, in the eastern Arctic, are asking the same question today. But one of the potentially most promising answers – expanding the sealskin trade – is entangled in the international politics of hunting.” Outside link to the Christian Science Monitor, with permission. (May 1, 2000)
- Greenland Pushing for Seal Fur Exports; Environmentalists Maintain Opposition From the Dallas Morning News, reproduced with permission. Dec. 22, 1999.
- The Strange Politics of the Marine Mammal Protection Act By Okalik Eegeesiak, President, Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, and Sheila Watt-Cloutier, President, Inuit Circumpolar Conference, Canada. July 26, 1999.
- Court Finds IFAW Video Evidence Inadmissible Canadian court refuses to consider a video of alleged transgressions by sealers submitted by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. FCUSA press release, Apr. 21, 1999.
- Saving Society from Animal “Snuff” Films FCUSA commentary includes information on staged film of sealing cruelty. (Dec. 15, 1998, updated July 4, 2000)
- The Tuna-Dolphin Controversy By Michael Scott, senior scientist with the Dolphin Programme of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. Outside link to “Man In Nature”. (August 1998)
- Self-Service: Swollen Sea Lion Herds Push Fish and Fishermen to the Brink By Mick Kronman, Pacific Bureau Chief, National Fisherman magazine. Outside link to “Man In Nature”. (May 1998)
Books:
- Seal Wars! An American Viewpoint. Janice Scott Henke analyses the protest movement’s multi-media campaign to “save” the seals and the consequences on seal populations, the environment and the human communities involved. (Independent Publishers Group; ASIN: 091951961X; Out of print)
- Second Nature: The Animal Rights Controversy. Alan Herscovici outlines a “second nature”, a new relationship between man and his environment that can avert the environmental catastrophe the ecology movement has so rightly warned us of. (ISBN 0-88794-149-4)
Websites:
- AMIQ Institute (focused on Pribilof, Commander Islands)
- Canadian Sealers Association
- Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)
- High North Alliance
- Inuit Circumpolar Conference – Canada
- Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
- Nunavut: Canada’s Inuit Territory Provided by Nunatsiaq News
- Seals and Sealing Network
- West Nordic Council (Vestnordisk)
- Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada
- Understanding Seals and Sealing in Canada
