© Max MoreauJust a couple of weeks ago, I received the welcome news that the province of Quebec had considered, and rejected, the cost involved in culling grey seals in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Canada’s east coast seal hunt issue is far too multifaceted to adequately explain in a single blog. But, put simply, the grey seal is quite different from the harp seal, which is the species most associated with the notorious (and once commercially viable) annual late-winter kill of mostly young seals on the ice floes off Newfoundland, Labrador, and in the nearby Gulf. Grey seals are much less mobile, occur further south (to about New Jersey), and bear their young on shore. Unlike harp and other seal species, they have never had much commercial value.[teaserbreak]
Of course, the fishing industry wants to kill them off. It argues that grey seals damage fishing gear (which is true) and deplete numbers of commercial fish species such as northern cod (which is not only unproven, but possibly the opposite).
Canada’s federal and provincial governments love to blame other species for their own inability to sustainably manage resource extraction activities. Again, put simply, to conserve a commercially-valued species that has suffered significant decline (such as polar bears, northern cod, moose, or caribou) by reducing or stopping their killing or by ending other causes of their decline (such as habitat loss through agriculture and resource extraction) would entail political costs. Animals don’t vote, so they are easily scapegoated.
Culling enough of such a widely-distributed animal to significantly reduce the population would cost a fortune and would have to continue indefinitely. That means tax money.
The federal government is continuing to put my tax money into trying to promote the sale of products from both the commercial east coast hunt and products derived from ringed seals killed by Inuit. Europe has banned pelts, meat, oil, and other products from the commercial hunt, but never from the Inuit hunt (which has also never been the subject of campaigns by animal protection groups to end the commercial hunt).
Now, the province of Quebec is giving nearly $73,000 to seal hunt advocate and veterinarian Pierre-Yves Daoust to kill an undisclosed number of grey seals and to look for contaminants, heavy metals, and potential pathogens in grey seal bodies.
Why bother? I recall, three decades ago, looking at a sealskin neck tie, seal sausage, and canned seal meat that were being “developed” for commercial trade. Nothing came of these attempts, or of numerous attempts since, to market various seal-based products. A Vancouver restaurant is now featuring seal meat, but guess what? The gelatinous meat may appeal as a novelty, but will never be popular, as increasing numbers of people move away from meat-based diets.
Whether the meat is safe to eat or not, the market is simply not going to sustain the cull—period.
Keep wildlife in the wild,
Barry