Canada’s Seal Slaughter It is March 28, 2008, the opening day of Canada’s commercial seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Large fishing vessels can be seen everywhere and are heading to the ice floes where the sealers (commercial seal hunters) will be on the search for harp and hooded seals. Once the sealers are within shooting range they will shoot the seals from their vessels. The seals’ that are being slaughtered range in age from the older mothers to just a few weeks old baby seals, the seals scream, shake, and try to get off the ice floes. The seals that are successful getting off the ice floes but are already shot will slip beneath the water’s surface where they will slowly die from their wounds. Then, once the vessel reaches the ice floes the sealers run to the shot and wounded seals with their hakapiks, which are large wooden clubs with a curved ice pick at the end to drag the seals across the ice. When the sealers reach the wounded screaming baby seal, they then club it over the head. Hopefully, but rarely does it this happen, the seal will be dead. Finally, the sealer jabs the hakapik pick into the seal’s back to the vessel, where it will be skinned, all the while the seal is shaking and moaning still. This is not an acceptable way to be hunting animals in today’s society. Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is not big enough to regulate the commercial hunt, and there is too much waste in the seal hunt. The apathy of hunters towards the barbaric manner in which the seals are treated extends to those within the Canadian government. John Efford, former Canadian Minister of Natural Resources (“Why”) is quoted as saying: “Mr. Speaker, I would like to see the 6 million seals, or whatever number is out there, killed and sold, or destroyed and burned, I do not care what happens to them…the more kill the better I will love it.” The methods used during the Canadian seal hunt are far too barbaric and inhumane for today’s society. In addition, the scope of the commercialized hunt has changed greatly from that which the original sealers (the aboriginals) hunted the seals for. The aborigines hunted seals for every part of the seal to be used. They would only hunt the number of seals they need to survive. During the aboriginal hunting, there was no need for regulations, limits, or sponsors. The aboriginals hunted for survival not for fashion (“FAQ”). During the 1950s and 1960s the commercial fishing industry demolished the northern cod stocks off Canada’s East Coast because they were over fishing the cod. The commercial fishers brought the northern cod population to near extinction in the early 1970s. During this period, the seal population was at an all time low due to the fact that the Canadian commercial fish industry over-hunted the seals as well. In 1974, senior Canadian government scientist warned that the harp seal would be extinct if the hunting does not cease for at least ten years. DFO allowed the near extinct of both the northern cod and the harp seals in the 1970s. Instead of letting the northern cod population regain itself when Canada established the “200 mile limit” to keep foreign fishers away, the DFO allowed the Canadian commercial fishers to go out and fish the northern cod twice as hard without the foreign fleets there (“About”, “FAQ”, “Playing”, “Seal”, “Truth”). After near extinction of the northern cod population, 40,000 Atlantic Canadian commercial fishermen lost their main source of income due to the fact that the fishing industry collapsed. The DFO was in desperate need of a scapegoat for nearly killing the entire northern cod population and so the DFO turned to the seals. The DFO claimed that the seals were eating all the northern cod, even though scientists warned it was because of over-fishing (“About”, “Seal”, “Why“). This was ultimately to make work for out-of-fishermen (“Seal”). The argument of the DFO didn’t make sense. Even though the Canadian Government and independent scientists argued that only three percent of harp seal’s diet is northern cod. Furthermore, the harp seal consumes many substantial cod predators (“Why”). Since the DFO used seals as a scapegoat, the seal population has decreased dramatically from an estimated 30 million seals when explorers landed on the East coast of Canada to an estimated five million in 2008 (before the 2008 seal hunt) reported by the DFO ( “About“, “Atlantic“, “FAQ”, “Playing”) . Not only was setting high slaughter quotas not enough, in 2004 DFO set a 350,000 seal quota, but sealers killed nearly 16,000 over the quota and were not punished (“Playing”). Official DFO kill reports conclude that 97 percent of all seals slaughtered during the past five years are less than three months of age, the majority of which are under a month old (“About”, “Atlantic”, “FAQ”, “Playing”). The last time the seals were slaughtered at this rate, in the 1950s and 1960s, the harp seal population was two thirds its current size (“About”). How can the world sit back and watch DFO bring the seals to extinction? The DFO has had enough chances to try to fix the northern cod population problem and culling the seals is not one of them (“Truth”, “Why”). Another problem with the DFO is that it can not fully monitor the commercial seal hunt. There are hundreds of fishing vessels, by thousands of sealers, hunting over hundreds of nautical miles. This year, the DFO had one enforcement officer for every seven vessels, which is calculated to be about one officer per 80 sealers. The DFO didn’t follow to its own quotas and allowed sealers to go nearly 40,000 over quota per year in the years of 2002-2005. In addition, licensed sealers are inadequately trained. To obtain license sealer must work under the supervision of professional sealer for two years. Many of the vessels, especially the larger ones reach their quota in two days this means the “two year apprenticeship” comes out to be as little as four day training. Since 1999, the DFO prohibits anyone other than the sealers to come within half nautical mile of the seal slaughter, unless approved by the Canadian government. In 1998, animal protection groups submitted over 700 videos with violations of the Marine Mammal Regulations - including seals being skinned alive, but not one charge has been made. The DFO will not even accept help even though they are undermanned (“Truth”). It is estimated for every seal slaughter, another is shot, wounded and lost under the water/ice, these lost seals are not to be included in the killed count, as estimated by Farley Cowat Sea Shepherd International Chairman (“Seal“). Once a seal is killed and landed, it is skinned while the carcass is either left on the ice floes or thrown over board into the ocean because there is not a demand for the rest of the seal. The seal meat is considered inedible and unfit for consumption by non-aboriginals. There is still a small market for seal flippers in Newfoundland for seal flipper pies, but for the most part, what little meat is keep usually goes for pet food and farm industries. Seal oil is being promoted by Canada as healthy oil, although other scientific studies have shown that is misleading (“Seal”). An argument against the seal hunt can also be made from an economic standpoint. The cost of the seal hunt is not worth hunting seals. In 2007, according to the DFO, the entire dollar amount amounted to 12 million dollars (i.e. this is the value of what the seal pelts brought in). An average seal pelt brings in 52 dollars. At least six million dollars went to the sealers, while the Canadian Government said the other half went towards seal hunt expense. Adding up the seal hunting expenses come to nearly ten times the six million dollars the Canadian Government claims in the expenses of the seal hunt. First, a large expense is deploying the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG), which last year was ten vessels. Many of these vessels were ice breakers, helicopters, and patrol planes. One day of the seal hunt ice breaking cost 50,000 dollars, alone. Also, in 2007, sealers were trapped for days due to heavy ice which costs the CCG 3.41 million dollars, plus 7.9 million dollars paid to vessel owners (Teitel). In 2004, over 240,000 dollars was subsidized to from the Canadian government to two companies to develop seal products. In 2001, the Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment reported over 20 million dollars was subsidies to the sealing industry from 1995-2001 (“Truth”). The sealers would put themselves in grave danger if a ban to end seal hunting with the hakapiks would come in affect. The sealers are truly worried about the idea that they would have to shot each seal, because with every bullet hole the value of the pelt goes down at least two dollars. With pelts being at an all time low the sealers can’t afford wasting bullets or bringing down the value of the pelts. The clubs could be used if they were used in a humane way like the aboriginals use them to hunt for survival purposes, not for the commercial slaughter (“Ban“). The DFO claims to closely monitor all aspects of the seal hunt from the licensing, surveillance of sealers, dock inspections, to inspections at the buying and processing facilities. But, the DFO has given out more fines to animal rights groups than to the sealers even when the animal rights groups have help the DFO with their job and given them footage to violating sealers. The DFO does not even hold to the sealers to their set quotas, so why would the sealers worry about regulations, especially when it only takes four days of training to obtain a sealers license (“Truth”). The Canadian Government claims the seal hunt creates jobs for out of work fishermen during their unemployment season, as well as bringing in economic stimulus. Also, Canada makes money from exporting the seal’s pelt, meat, and organs. What the Canadian Government is not factoring in are all the tax payers’ dollars that are funding the seal hunt for the CCG and DFO. Canada would save money now and in the long term if they would send the out of work fisherman to schools on fishing, to teach how to fish with out over fishing (“Myths”). The DFO does have the right concept of animal population control, but has just gone completely too far with it. The aboriginals are the right full hunters as the DFO has said, but the aboriginals should not have to compete against commercial Canadian sealers.
The seals are not over-populated to the point where there needs to be a commercial culling. The seal hunt must go back to just the aboriginals hunting seals for survival needs, if the world does not want to lose the seals and northern cod to human error. The world must act together and help Canada realize the Canadian seal hunt is inhumane and barbaric. To accomplish this countries and people alike must not purchase or promote anything made from seals. The seal hunt needs to go back to being real hunting, not slaughtering.

Works Cited
“About the Canadian Seal Hunt.” The Humane Society of the United States. 29 Apr.
2008 < http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/protect_seals/ about_the_canadian_seal_hunt/>. “Atlantic Seal Hunt 2006-2010 Management Plan.” Fisheries and Oceans Canada. 19
Mar. 2008. 1 May 2008 .
“Ban Spiked Clubs in Seal Hunt?” MSNBC. 16 Apr. 2008. The Associated Press. 1 May 2008 .
Carrus, Katie. “Seal Hunt Inherently Inhumane.” The Humane Society of the United
States. 1 Apr. 2008. 1 May 2008 .
“Playing a Deadly Numbers Game: Canada Announces the 2006 Seal Hunt Quota.” The Humane Society of the United States. 15 Mar. 2006. 1 May 2008 < http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/protect_seals/resources/ canada_announces_2006_quota.html>. “Seal Hunt Facts.” Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. 29 Apr. 2008 .
Teitel, Murray. “True Economics of the Seal Hunt: The Millions Ottawa Spends
Subsidizing the Seal Hunt.” Canadian Seal Hunt. 17 Apr. 2008. 1 May 2008 < http://www.canadiansealhunt.com/economics.html>.

”The Truth about the Canadian Seal Hunt: A Response to the Canadian Department of Fisheries.” The Humane Society of the United States. Mar. 2008. 29 Apr. 2008 < http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/protect_seals/the_truth.html>.
“Why the Canadian Government Supports the Commercial Seal Hunt.” Humane
Society International Canada. 1 May 2008 .