© National Geographic/Brian SkerryA harp seal beginning to shed
its white coat.
A Canadian sealer by the name of Leo Hearn recently complained that activists distort the facts about the Canadian commercial seal hunt.[teaserbreak]
He said that, in the modern hunt, seals are shot in the head with a .22 rifle and subsequently clubbed to ensure instant death. The skull of a mature animal averages something less than eight inches long. Roughly two-thirds of that are the mouth, nasal assembly, and eyes, with roughly one-third housing the brain.
If you have ever shot a .22 rifle, you know that it’s difficult to hit a moving target that is, at best, a little more than two inches in length (especially when you’re tired or on a boat). Unless the bullet hits the brain or the spinal column, the stricken animal will not die “humanely” and, indeed, may well escape into the water—badly injured.
Hearn goes on to say that the hunt is closely regulated. But, if you’ve ever been on the ice (as I have), you know that visibility is limited with the horizon nearby, and with pressure ridges and mounds of ice blocking views. Hunters are supposed to follow a protocol for those animals struck, either by a bullet or a club, whereby they are bled out before being skinned. Charges have been laid against some who have not done so.
What is misleading, though, is to suggest that everything is well-policed. That’s simply not possible given the vast area involved.
It’s true that whitecoat seals are no longer killed for commercial purposes. Whitecoats are the newborn harp seal pups named for their white natal fur. They begin to shed that fur a couple of weeks after birth, and from that point on, they are legally killed. Whether you call these animals “babies” or “young” is a matter of semantics, but it’s misleading to suggest that “only” adult seals are killed.
And, what is truly misleading is to confuse—as the fishing and sealing industries do—the large-scale commercial slaughter of seals off Canada’s east coast (that began on April 11) with the very small hunt of mostly different seal species by native people in the far north (which has never been subject to the international seal hunt protest movement).
While Canadian taxpayers have, unwittingly, been funding efforts to expand markets for seal products (oil, meat, penises, adult fur, and leather), the market has steadily declined. Bans on products from the commercial hunt are in place in major markets, giving the native hunt a monopoly, as their products are allowed in Europe (but not in the U.S.). Although it’s not considered “commercial,” it does yield products sold to help economies in the far north. It’s a market hurt by the continuation of the commercial hunt.
This is a complex, multi-faceted issue not helped by charges of misinformation that are, themselves, so badly misinformed.
Keep wildlife in the wild,
Barry