Ban the Cruel Seal Trade | BanSealTrade.eu | Subsistence Hunting in Greenland

Subsistence Hunting in Greenland

18^th March 2009

As subsistence hunting, by definition, involves that which is destined primarily for domestic consumption, a European Union prohibition on seal product trade would not stop Greenlanders from conducting traditional seal hunting. Neither would a EU prohibition prevent Greenland from commercially trading seal products domestically or to its markets outside the EU.

Notably, previous EU prohibitions on seal product trade have not negatively impacted Greenland's seal catch. Government data clearly shows that following the 1983 EU Seal Pup Directive, which banned EU trade in newborn seal skins, Greenland's harp seal catches actually increased—from a mere 7,000 in 1975, to about 50,000 throughout the late 1980s, to more than 100,000 by 2000.

Seal pup. © HSI

Moreover, Greenland's seal catches appear not to be affected by global sealskin prices. In the wake of record prices for harp seal skins (between 2002 and 2006), Greenland's reported catches steadily decreased—from a high of more than 100,000 in 2000 down to less than 60,000 in 2005.

In Greenland, seals are hunted by both professional and "leisure" hunters. Professional hunters earn more than half of their annual incomes from hunting and fishing (of which that from seals accounts for only a fraction), while leisure hunters earn at least 90 percent of their annual incomes from other sources. The latest data available (2002) shows that only 27 percent of hunters in Greenland are "professionals."

It is estimated that hunting as a profession will largely die out in the next 25 years as Greenland's economy shifts towards tourism, mining and oil production. This economic shift is further backed up by the fact that over the six year period from 2001-2006 (latest available data), exports of seal products from Greenland amounted to less than one half of one percent of Greenland's GDP annually.