More humane seal hunt takes to ice

Allison Hanes, National Post Published: Monday, March 10, 2008

When Canada’s seal hunt gets underway on the ice floes of the northeast Atlantic coast within the next month, a new set of federal standards will be in place that attempts to ensure the young animals are killed as quickly and humanely as possible after being clubbed or shot.

The key element will be for hunters to palpitate the seal’s skull to gauge whether it is unconscious or whether its head has been fatally crushed before proceeding with bleeding out or skinning the animals. If the seal is still alert, hunters will have to cut the main artery to ensure imminent death.

But both sealers and anti-slaughter activists say the new regulations, following the recommendations of a panel of veterinary experts, are not that much different from how the seal harvest is currently conducted, raising questions about how far the measures will go in blunting international criticism of a controversial enterprise that is considered a mainstay of the East Coast economies.

An independent group of veterinarians assembled by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans in 2005 proposed “a three-step method of stunning, checking and bleeding seals [that] can result in rapid, irreversible loss of consciousness and death, and thus can be a humane process.”

While the new rules have not been officially posted on the department’s Web site, seal hunters are preparing for their implementation when the season opens late this month or early next.

Frank Pinhorn, managing director of the Canadian Sealers Association, said the organization will be touring Newfoundland over the next few weeks, using an instructional video to brief its members on the new expectations.

But he said the new requirements are mostly in line with current sealing practices.

“By and large, most of the procedures are already in place,” he said.

“Seals are always checked to see if they’re dead…. Sealers want to do the job properly as well. We’ve been in this business a long time and we always take pride in doing our work in a right and proper fashion.”

Sealing, however, is a dangerous occupation in which hunters often navigate their boats through frigid oceans laden with ice.

During DFO consultations in St. John’s this year, sealers were in agreement with the new regulation in principle, but had concerns that if not worded correctly it could seriously endanger human life, according to www.thesealfishery.com, an information resource on industry practices.

“The sealers are concerned about the instances where the ice is thin and you can’t get out on it. Then you got to retrieve your seal and check them in your boat,” Mr. Pinhorn said. “They got to be retrieved by the hakapik or whatever. The alternative is to shoot the animal again. That is practised in some instances.”

Canada is facing increasing pressure to end or limit the annual seal hunt, a tradition that dates back commercially to the 1700s in Newfoundland and Labrador, the North Shore of Quebec, the Magdalene Islands and the Maritimes, and further among aboriginal and Inuit peoples.Celebrities such as Brigitte Bardot and Sir Paul McCartney and his former wife have campaigned against sealing internationally, using the iconic image of the adorable white pup.

Belgium and the Netherlands have passed laws banning the import of seal products such as fur, meat and oil, which is known for its Omega 3 fatty acid content. Now the European Union is poised to consider similar legislation, which could devastate the Canadian industry.

There are about six million harp seals off the east coast of Canada — triple the population of 30 years ago. Last year, Canada’s seal cull was 270,000. This year’s quota has not been announced yet, according to the sealers.

ahanes@nationalpost.com

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