Environmental Issues in Northern Ontario
The seal hunt is alive and well
It's something Canadians should celebrate. For more than 250 years,
Newfoundlanders have been making a fraction of their income by hunting
and killing harp seals, mainly for their pelts and oil, or more
accurately for the money that those products bring.
This year the harvest of seals, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off the
coast of Labrador, is expected to bring about $16 million for the
sealers of Atlantic Canada and Quebec. If that doesn't sound like a lot
of money to you, you have never faced the reality of trying to piece
together a living on the rocky shores of eastern Canada.
Life can be very, very tough on The Rock. In the 1950s, a decade or so
after Newfoundland voted to for Confederation, I met grown men,
grandfathers some
of them, who had lived their entire lives on the barter system,
exchanging their harvest from the sea, not for cash, but for credit at
the company store.
Stop and think about that for a moment. How would it feel to be a
successful fisherman, a father and a grandfather, working hard for an
entire lifetime, without ever having held cash in your hand?
The first cash, the first regular income that many of these
familiesenjoyed, came in the form of "the baby bonus", followed by old
age pensions.
Is it any wonder that the late and
legendary Joey Smallwood, first and longest-lasting premier of
Newfoundland, told me decades later that there
were women (wives, mothers and grandmothers) who went to their graves, a
portrait of Smallwood in their coffins.
Conservative estimates place this year's seal herd at 5 million animals,
about three times its size 35 years ago. How much proof does it take to
demonstrate that there is a harvestable surplus of seals in Canada's
Atlantic waters? Sealers continue to reap that harvest. And its value is
growing. Seal pelt prices have risen to about $70 in recent years.
All this despite 35 years of efforts by well-heeled, well-financed
lobbyists to end the hunt. Actually that is a misconception. Lobbyists
like Paul Watson who heads the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, have a
vested
interest in making sure the hunt continues. For as long has the hunt
exists, with it shocking images of bright red blood on the cold white
ice, Watson and others like him will continue to line their pockets.
That's what the annual protest over the killing of seals is all
about....more donations, more cash for the "animal rights" groups and
their often charismatic leaders.
Brian Davies, who helped found the IFAW back in 1969, retired in 1997
and it has just been revealed that IFAW had to cough up a promise of
$2.5 million before he would step down as chairman and chief executive.
He was given $615,000 in the first installment of a seven year deal. In
return IFAW gets to use his name. How's that for a sweet deal? The
payoffs came to light
through public accounts that IFAW, a charity, had to register in
Britain.
Wonder what kind of paper trail IFAW and
Davies have left in Canada and the United States? Where did all that
money donated by 1.5 million well-intentioned but misled IFAW supporters
from around the world really go?
And IFAW is only one of the dozens of groups soliciting donations on
behalf of animal rights. Wouldn't it be interesting to track down where
and how all of the millions in donations they raise each year is
actually spent?
Is the seal hunt particularly cruel? I
don't believe it is. It is more of a harvest than a hunt because the
only trick is to find the seals on the ice.
These are young seals, usually around
three weeks of age. No harvest, no slaughter of animals is a pretty
thing to watch. It is particularly stomach-churning for the millions in
North America and Europe who have no
idea how meat reaches their tables. Our grandfathers knew that living
things were butchered, pigs for pork, cows for beef and chickens for
Sunday dinner. If our grandfathers did not raise and kill their own
livestock, they had family members who did. The cycle of birth, life,
death and renewal was as plain as the nose on your face. Today it is
masked for the millions of
Canadians who grow up in cities, who will never have to make a living
from the land. The appalling radio commercials currently being run by
the IFAW claim darkly that "some seals may be skinned alive." That's
patent nonsense.
The cash for the sealer is in the fur,
the pelt. As anyone who has ever skinned an animal will tell you, it is
a very tricky job to carry out without damaging the pelt and reducing
its value. No sealer in his right mind would set out to try and remove
the skin from a writhing, wriggling
animal. Think about it for a moment. Use your common sense.
The way the world works is that few if any wild creatures have the
options of peaceful ends to their lives. Age, injury, predators and
illness take their toll. There are no retirement homes for wild things.
Their reality is that they are very fortunate if predators wait until
they are dead before starting dinner. Most prey animals are eaten while
alive.
A bullet or a club is just about as humane as it gets for wild animals.
For my part, I'll continue to support the seal hunt, as I support wise
hunting, fishing and trapping. Conservation is all about the wise use of
natural resources. It has nothing to do with the animal rights
organizations who continue to fatten themselves on the images of the
seal harvest.
Gary Ball may be reached at gball@trytel.net
