A special report prepared for Building for a Future magazine Spring 2004

The Canadian Seal Hunt: A High Price To Pay?

Over the next few months, the vast seasonal fields of ice that extend off the Atlantic coast of Canada, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence out to Newfoundland and Labrador, will be the theatre for the annual ritual of the Canadian Seal Hunt, the largest directed hunt of marine mammals anywhere in the world.

The contemporary seal hunt in Atlantic Canada is conducted mainly by land-based sealers with commercial licences issued by the Federal Government. The vast majority of seals that die are young harp seal "beater" pups between 3 weeks and 12 months of age, killed by clubs, hakapiks, shotguns and high-powered rifles. Although the sealing season extends from November to May, in practice the majority of sealing occurs between early March and May in two major areas: the "Gulf" of St. Lawrence (starting in mid-March) and the "Front" off Newfoundland and Labrador (starting in mid-April). This year, up to 350,000 seals may be taken legally, while many more may be lost at sea, dying from wounds inflicted during hunting activities.

Commercial hunting of harp seals has existed since the 17th Century. At its peak in the mid-19th Century, up to a million animals were killed each season. For most of the 20th Century, the hunt was conducted from large vessels (longer than 65 feet) taking anywhere between 150,000 and 450,000 animals each year. In 1971, the Federal Government introduced the first quota (called the Total Allowable Catch, TAC) of 245,000 animals, and from then until 1982, an average of 165,000 seals (out of an average TAC of 175,000) were killed. Then, things changed.

In 1983, the sealing industry was hit by an international ban on the importation of pelts from Canadian white-coat harp seal pups into the European Economic Community; the EEC took this action largely in response to the campaigning efforts of animal welfare groups, particularly the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). The collapse of this market for seal products effectively ended the large-vessel hunt, which had previously been responsible for most of the young pups taken. From 1983 to 1995, seal landings decreased significantly to an average of 52,000 per year, despite annual TACs of 186,000.

During the same period, the Maritime region experienced another blow to its economy. The huge and highly lucrative regional fishery for northern Atlantic cod, which had sustained the region for centuries, was beginning to contract at an alarming rate. Plummeting catches and reductions in the spawning biomass of fish eventually pushed the Canadian Government into unprecedented action in 1992, when they introduced a moratorium on the commercial exploitation of cod, throwing about 40,000 people in the fishery out of work. Even today, only restricted fishing is allowed for a quota of some 15,000t off Newfoundland - equivalent to about 2% of the peak landings seen in the late 1960s fishery.

To try to dodge the inevitable bullet of blame for fisheries mismanagement, both provincial and federal governments embarked on a scapegoat campaign, blaming an "exploding" seal population for eating all the fish. This charade, however, was exposed by the findings of the Government's own scientists whose research showed that seals ate predominantly other, non-commercial fish species (including the predators of young cod), and that human overexploitation of cod was the prime reason for its ultimate demise.

Despite evidence contradicting their position on seal-fishery interactions, the Federal Government has pursued an aggressive seal management strategy over the last ten years. The 1995 TAC of 186,000 seals has increased to an average of 325,000 for 2003-5, with an allowed annual maximum TAC of 350,000. This has effectively doubled the TAC in ten years, even though the harp seal population of about 5 million is considered to have been stable since 1996. So the long-term sustainability of the hunt - supposedly a central tenet of the Government's sealing policy - is seriously in question. But sustainability is not the only feature of the hunt under scrutiny.

The economic rationale for continuing the hunt is also questionable. Since the 1983 EEC ban on the import of whitecoat pelts, long-term substitute markets for seal products abroad have failed to materialize. As a result, the millions of dollars that provincial and federal governments continue to invest in the form of sealing subsidies are barely covered by the revenue generated by the hunt.

The most concerning aspect of the hunt is its record on animal welfare. Provincial and federal governments and sealing organizations have dismissed the many documented episodes of inhumane sealing practices as unrepresentative of the hunt as a whole. This latter assertion, however, has been recently refuted with the issue of a 2001 report by an international team of veterinary experts who observed sealers at work and conducted post-mortem examinations of seals killed on the ice. Their findings were alarming: 79% of sealers did not check to see if a seal was dead before skinning it, and 42% of the animals examined had head injuries that were insufficient to have killed them outright. In effect, not only did these animals not die immediately, there is a strong chance that they were also skinned alive. If this study is representative of the hunt at large, more than 100,000 seals may die like this in 2004.

So, in its present form, the hunt would appear to be conducted inhumanely, managed ineffectively, unsound economically, and unsustainable ecologically. With so much going against it, why does it continue? Well, many Canadians (and foreign tourists) remain unaware that a large-scale seal hunt continues today, and assurances of effective hunt practice and management from the Government continue to suppress rebellion from within and concern from abroad. Certainly, the current Canadian government, in power for more than a decade, has never expressed anything other than support for the hunt, and it would be no surprise if they feel the need to continue funding this cultural bastion, more so today than at any time, because previous governments have let the people of the Maritimes down so badly by mismanaging their fisheries to the point of collapse.

Over the last 12 years, the Canadian Government has been 'investing' vast sums of money in subsidizing Maritime fishery workers displaced by the collapse of the commercial fish stocks. Since the 1992 moratorium, the Canadian Government has spent $4 billion Canadian dollars - a sum equivalent to approximately $100,000 for each of the 40,000 fishery workers affected - on licence buyouts, subsidies, income support, relocation, retraining and redevelopment. But this money has had a limited impact in addressing key issues for displaced workers, their families and communities. Older people in particular have been left without the re-training and skills to move on to other work. Simply put, the collapse of fishing has left people with little opportunity to do anything else in many rural fishing communities. Not surprising, then, that the number of commercial sealers has approximately doubled over the last ten years.

Are there real alternatives to the seal hunt? Well, the economic argument for investment in tourism as a regional enterprise is compelling. For example, in 2001, the estimated landed value of 226,000 harp seals - about 205,000 of which were landed in Newfoundland and Labrador - was $5.5 million. In contrast, in 2002, the Newfoundland and Labrador economy received $300 million in expenditures related to tourism, a figure that had doubled from 1992. The question is: Will tourism flourish in the Maritimes if the hunt continues unabated?

For now, it seems unlikely that an end to the organized hunt will happen through anything other than a massive social and cultural change in the Maritimes. Both federal and provincial governments are not prepared to alter the status quo, because this political pill is too big to swallow. In the meantime, what long-term cost will be borne by seals and people in Atlantic Canada? What kind of advertisement is this for the Canadian Maritimes?

Ironically, the seal hunt has not detracted significantly from Canada's international reputation. The United Nations' annual Human Development Report, which measures standard of living and quality of life, rated Canada as the 'best place in the world to live' for 6 consecutive years from 1995-2000. Apparently, no seals were polled.

If you want to develop your own informed opinion about the Canadian seal hunt, some information sources are provided below, including contact details for the Canadian Government.

Dr. Glenn Boyle, Curator at the National Seal Sanctuary in Cornwall, UK, is a seal biologist and researcher who has worked in seal rehabilitation and research centres in Europe and Canada over the last 15 years. He plans to visit the Gulf of St. Lawrence this year to observe the hunt and to talk with local communities about seals and sealing.

Further Information

Status and management of harp seals in Canada:
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/csas/csas/status/2000/E1-01e.pdf
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/seal-phoque/reports-rapports/mgtplan-plangest2002/mgtplan-plangest2002_e.pdf
http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx?oid=21446

Canadian High Commission, London:
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/canadaeuropa/united_kingdom/menu-en.asp
E-mail - ldn-cs@dfait-maeci.gc.ca