Canada’s Controversial Seal Hunt Starts Off with a Bang

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Seal Hunt

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PETA's video of the Hunt

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Despite the looming European Union ban, Canadian seal hunters lunged onto the ice Monday for their annual Commercial Seal Hunt. More than 200,000 baby harp seals were killed in 2008's hunt, but more are expected to die this year as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans increased the quota from 283, 200 to 338,200.

Long a topic of controversy for its brutality, the Seal Hunt is a tradition held strong by Canadian hunters, who insist that the pelts, blubber and meat acquired from the baby seals is their primary source of income.

But environmental and animal rights groups refer to it as little more than a massacre. Ingrid Newkirk of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) described the hunt as a slaughter, saying, “Most of the young seals who will be skinned during this slaughter are so small and helpless that they simply have to watch their attackers approach and raise their weapons to crack their skulls.”

A popular method of killing the young seals is with the hakapik, a heavy wooden club with a hammer head and metal hook on the end. The hakapik is used because of its efficiency, the animal can be killed quickly without damage to its pelt. The hammer head is used to crush the skull, while the hook is used to move the carcass.

Hunters counter that the hunt is humane and sustainable and brings money to isolated fishing communities.

Fishermen sell seal pelts mostly for the fashion industry in Norway, Russia and China, as well as blubber for oil. The hunt resulted in exports worth about $5.5 million in seal products such as pelts, meat and oils to the EU in 2006.

And despite outcries from the likes of PETA and The Humane Society, the sealing industry insists the animals are not alive when they are skinned.

Even so, the world’s largest marine mammal hunt was called “inherently inhumane” this month by a European Parliament committee that endorsed the bill to ban the import of seal products to the 27-member union.

Canadian officials defended the start of the annual seal hunt Monday as a financial necessity for isolated communities, as sealers faced pressure from a possible European Union ban.