Ensuring a Sustainable and Humane Seal Harvest - Nunavut ...

ENSURING A SUSTAINABLE ANDHUMANE SEAL HARVESTIntroductionFor over 30 years, Canada’s commercial seal harvest in the Northwest Atlantic hasattracted international attention and criticism from animal rights and welfare activists. Thecampaign against the commercial seal harvest, led by several internationalnongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and celebrities, resulted in a ban by the EuropeanUnion — then the European Communities — on the importation of pelts from very youngharp and hooded seals in the early 1980s, and the collapse of international sealskinmarkets. Despite far-reaching changes to Canadian harvesting regulations and practices inthat period, markets failed to recover and the Canadian harvest declined significantly. Thisbegan to change in the mid-1990s as a result of increasing demand in internationalmarkets and a rapidly growing harp seal population that reached 5.2 million in 1995. Withresulting increases in Canadian quotas and catches came renewed international attentionto the seal harvest and a stepped-up NGO campaign to end the commercial harvest, whichhas led to proposed or announced legislative or regulatory actions aimed at banning theimport of seal products in several countries, particularly in Europe. Most worrisome forCanadians involved in the industry has been the possibility of a complete ban on theimportation and use of seal products by the 27-member European Union, which wasproposed in September 2006 by the European Parliament.In this context and in light of the social, economic and cultural importance of the sealharvest for many coastal communities on Canada’s Atlantic coast and in the North, theHouse of Commons Standing Committee of Fisheries and Oceans (the Committee)decided in late spring 2006 to study, once more, the Canadian seal harvest. TheCommittee focused its attention on four aspects of the seal harvest: its sustainability, itshumaneness, its economic, social and cultural importance, and its role in achieving andmaintaining an ecological balance within the marine ecosystem. In the course of this study,the Committee received a technical briefing from officials of Fisheries and Oceans Canada(DFO) and from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), metwith the new Ambassador for Fisheries Conservation, met with sealers and coastalcommunities involved in the harvest, as well as with Members of the European Parliamentvisiting Canada and heard from representatives of the key international NGOscampaigning to end the commercial seal harvest and from veterinary experts of theIndependent Veterinarian Working Group on the Canadian Seal Hunt. The Committee alsowelcomed in Ottawa, representatives of two Inuit organizations, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatamiand Nunavut Tuungavik Incorporated. The Committee watched a preview of thedocumentary Phoques : le film, and heard from its director. Finally, members of theCommittee travelled to the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker, the Amundsen, to observethe seal harvest and DFO’s enforcement activities in the Northern Gulf of St. Lawrence.1