New York Times 4/5/04: New Demand (from China and eastern Europe) Drives Canada's Baby Seal Hunt; Greenpeace is not opposed to it

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New York Times

 

April 5, 2004

 

New Demand Drives Canada's Baby Seal Hunt

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

 

AP-AUX-MEULES, Quebec, March 30 Commercial hunting of baby seals is back

and even bigger than when it stirred a global outcry two decades ago.

 

Horrified by the clubbing of infant harp seals, animal rights advocates

swayed public opinion against the hunt. Environmentalists joined the

campaign, fearing that the species was being depleted. World sales

collapsed. Even Canada reacted with revulsion and began stiffening

regulations on the kill.

 

Now, Canada has lifted the quota to a rate unheard of in a half century,

buoyed by new markets in Russia and Poland, and changing environmental

calculations. A recovering market has turned into a quiet boom.

 

Here on ice patches of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the hunt looks nearly as

brutal as ever. For as far as the eye can see, dozens of burly men bearing

clubs roam the ice in snowmobiles and spiked boots in search of silvery

young harp seals. With one or two blows to the head, they crush the

skulls, sometimes leaving the young animals in convulsions. The men drag

the bodies to waiting fishing vessels or skin them on the spot, leaving a

crisscross of bloody trails on the slowly melting ice.

 

On the trawler Manon Yvon, one hunter, Jocelyn Theriault, 35, said, " My

father hunted for 45 years, so I was born with the seal. " His colleagues

utter a sarcastic " welcome aboard " as they throw the skins on their

65-foot boat. " We do it for the money, " Mr. Theriault said, " but it's also

a tradition in our blood. "

 

Animal rights advocates aroused the world in the 1970's and 1980's with

grim films of Canadian seal hunters clubbing white-coated seal pups not

yet weaned from their mother's milk and then skinning some alive. That

campaign complete with photographs of Brigitte Bardot snuggling an infant

seal succeeded in shutting down American and European markets and forcing

a virtual collapse of the hunt.

 

But over the last six years, Canada's seal hunt, by far the world's

largest and commercially most valuable, has undergone a gradual revival

that has virtually escaped world attention. That trend is making an

extraordinary jump this year, when the federal government will allow the

killing of up to 350,000 baby harp seals, or more than one in three of all

those born, largely for their valuable fur.

 

That is an increase of more than 100,000 from recent years, and the

largest number hunted in at least a half century.

 

Rising prices for the skins and contentions that the growing seal

population is contributing to a shrinking codfish population have eased

the revival of an industry once roundly seen as barbaric. Meanwhile,

tougher hunting rules, including stiffer regulations to avert skinning the

seals alive, have muted the effort to stop the hunt and eased the

consciences of Canadians.

 

" This slaughter that everyone thinks has disappeared is back with a

vengeance, " said Rebecca Aldworth, an antihunt advocate with the

International Fund for Animal Welfare.

 

A majority of the seals killed are under a month old, she said, and, " at

that age, the seals haven't eaten their first solid foods and have not

learned to swim so they have no escape from the hunters. "

 

The seal hunt never completely shut down. After the United States banned

the importation of all seal products in 1972 and the European Union banned

the importation of the white pelts of the youngest pups in 1983, killings

fell to as low as 15,000 harp seals in 1985, mostly for meat and local

handicrafts.

 

Embarrassed by all the publicity accusing Canada of inhumane treatment of

animals, the government banned killing whitecoats the youngest pups up to

12 days old. Now only the seals who have shed their white coats and become

" beaters, " at about three weeks old, are killed in these waters for their

black-spotted silvery fur. The killing of those young seals has so far

raised fewer hackles, although critics say hunting methods have not been

substantially changed.

 

The surprising rebound of the hunt off the Isles de la Madeleine and the

northern coast of Newfoundland, where the harp seals migrate south from

the Arctic every spring to give birth and then mate again, results in

large part from a robust revival in the price of sealskin.

 

Seal products remain banned in the United States, and they find only

limited acceptance in most of Western Europe. But new markets have emerged

in Russia, Ukraine and Poland, with a fashion trend for sealskin hats and

accessories. Fur experts expect the Chinese market to grow, perhaps

raising prices higher.

 

" Markets are good, acceptance is growing and prices are well up, " said

Tina Fagen, executive director of the Canadian Sealers Association. She

said the price for a top-grade harp sealskin had more than doubled since

2001, to about $42, approaching the prices of the early 1970's.

 

But the revival is also made possible by a Canadian seal population that

was replenished during the long hunting slump. The Canadian harp seal

population has tripled in size since 1970, according to the Department of

Fisheries and Oceans, to more than five million today.

 

Fishermen contend that the abundance of seals is hindering a revival of

shrinking cod stocks since each adult seal eats an estimated ton of sea

life annually. The fishermen get support from politicians who want to help

revive economically depressed regions of Canada, and some scientists say

their position is reasonable.

 

Animal rights advocates are revving up a campaign against the hunt,

reviving calls for a tourism boycott of Canada and flying journalists over

the ice fields to photograph hunters killing the seals. The New York Times

did not take part in any of those flights.

 

A new generation of celebrities has taken up the cause, including Paris

Hilton, Christina Applegate and Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys pop

group. At the last Sundance Film Festival, some people wore a new T-shirt

that said, " Club sandwiches, not seals. "

 

But so far the outrage has not echoed the way it once did, in part because

Canada outlawed the killing of the youngest pups to follow Western

European import guidelines and stiffened rules and enforcement to ensure

that seals are killed quickly and not skinned alive. The government

requires novice seal hunters to obtain an assistant's license and train

under the supervision of veterans for two years before qualifying for a

professional license.

 

The government this year added a requirement that hunters thoroughly

examine the skull of the seal or touch the eyes of animal to test for

reflexes to guarantee a seal is brain dead before skinning.

 

" The industry needed to be cleaned up and it was, though perceptions

persist, " said Roger Simon, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans area

director for the les de la Madeleine.

 

Some prominent environmental groups that opposed the hunt in years past

because of concerns over the sustainability of the Canadian harp seal

population have dropped their active opposition. Greenpeace, once one of

the most active groups against the hunt, now says it is satisfied that

Canada is not allowing infant whitecoat seals to be killed.

 

But Mads Christensen, a Greenpeace seals expert, said he was concerned

about this year's large hunt. " We don't have enough science, and that

calls for caution, " he added.

 

Canadian officials say they will regularly review the seal population and

adjust the hunt accordingly. " If you are going to have an annual harvest

you have to maintain a sustainable number, " said Geoff Regan, the minister

of fisheries and oceans, in an interview. " We are going to come up with

these numbers on the basis of what the herd can sustain. "

 

Seal hunting is worth about $30 million annually to the Newfoundland

economy, which has been hurt by the collapse of the cod fishery. About

5,000 hunters and 350 workers who process skins rely on the industry.

Hundreds more hunting jobs are created in Quebec and Nova Scotia.

 

" I love it that the market is back, " said Jason Spence, the 32-year-old

captain of Ryan's Pride, a fishing boat that set sail from Newfoundland a

few weeks ago for the seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

 

Arguing that hunting seals is no worse than " people taking the heads off

chickens, butchering cows and butchering pigs, " he added, " People are just

trying to make a living. "

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