Waging the Seal War, by Senator Hervieux-Payette

What motivates international organizations to spend thousands of dollars to protect an animal that is not threatened? In the face of such strong emotions and irrationality, this is quite a legitimate question, says Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette , Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, who signed this text.

This seal war actually opens a whole debate – in my opinion one that should be addressed immediately – on the moral discourse of these organizations and their vision of man in the natural environment.

Let us point out four essential things: firstly, the harp seal population is healthy and abundant: three times more in 2007 than in 70’s (nearly 6 millions today). Secondly, the hunt of “baby” seals (the whitecoat seals) is illegal since 1987. Thirdly, the methods used to kill seals – especially the hakapik – are certified without cruelty by the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association. Fourthly, Canada has ratified the Convention of the United Nations on biological diversity. For this reason Canada has obligation to guarantee the diversity of the species and to use its resources in a sustainable way.

As primarily urban citizens of America or Europe, it is as though we are discovering a basic law that is as old as the planet itself: that the human species survives by depending on other living species (animal or vegetable) and prospers through trade.

Our sanitized cities have progressively isolated us from this basic reality that humankind takes the resources it needs from its environment. We must remember though that it was ever thus. Our western lifestyle has reduced the number of people who harvest resources to a very small minority, which is nearly invisible to the vast majority of us who benefit from them.

Yes we eat living species to survive. And yes we trade living species to prosper.

The arguments put forward by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and its allies suggest another moral vision of mankind, whose sectarian and religious nature warrant closer examination. In a paper published in 2005 by the HSUS, “Public Morality and the Canadian Seal Hunt,” Reverend Andrew Linzay wrote, “to point to economic advantage is insufficient as a moral justification.” Also a PhD and member of the theology faculty at Oxford University, Linzay added that, “there is no adequate moral justification for the seal hunt.”

In this new moral order, animals have rights but surprisingly no obligations since, as Linzay notes, “animals are morally innocent.” The animal’s purity stands in contrast to man, the source of original sin and corruptor of the Garden of Eden. So is it morally acceptable for man to heartlessly kill animals in order to survive, behaving as an omnipotent would-be creator? “Language about seals as a resource is sub-ethical,” replies Linzay, adding that “instrumentalist views of animals still predominate in the world day.”

From this perspective then, suggesting that man is superior to animals is blasphemy. Yet the facts are clear: man is a species that has come to dominate all others. This gives man the tremendous responsibility of ensuring the survival of passive resources while showing sensitivity and compassion. Moreover, man’s relationship with fellow creatures is above the most fundamental law since the concept of justice is unknown in the wilds. So we must not accept this new definition of right and wrong that HSUS and its allies are implicitly putting forward. In their opinion, “animals [who] cannot give or withhold their consent, vulnerable and defenceless” are good, while man, who uses his power in a supposedly barbaric way, is bad.

Yet information is manipulated through this underlying message: by claiming to be the defender of species and the environment, HSUS and its allies are carefully avoiding reference to their moral vision of man, while recruiting public opinion to their cause.

Hence the great ambiguity of the issue: when HSUS and its allies talk about protecting seals, they are officially claiming a threat to the species – which is not borne out by scientific facts – while unofficially challenging the right of man in the natural environment to kill animals – in a sustainable manner and without causing suffering – in order to live, trade and prosper. How else if not by this logic can we explain Brigitte Bardot’s rationale for launching a petition against eating horse meat or for including vegetarianism in the platform of her national party in France on March 24, 2007?

Using the emotionally charged image of the whitecoat seal – where an emotional response is the opposite of a rational one – when it has not been hunted since 1987 is part of this strategy of manipulating environmental discourse for the purposes of a moralist ideology.

At the heart of this approach are the animal rights supporters, not experts but extremists who advocate for animals. Their doctrine is supported by an army of volunteers and supporters around the world who identify with animals, that is, ordinary people whose sentimentality about animals is carefully nurtured.

This mixture of science and the holy, of reason and spirituality, is the black hole in this seal war: it is at the heart of it although it is invisible. While it might be deplorable that societies are attracted to this vision, it is nevertheless legitimate. Attempts to impose it however are dangerous fanaticism that must be fought with resolve.