You Could Buy—and Even Consume—Seal Products Without Knowing It
18th March 2009
While most consumers don't want to buy seal products, they can easily do so by mistake. The main products from seals include seal fur, seal leather and seal oil. Because they are often not distinguishable from like products, these and other seal products are easily confused with non-seal products.
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Seal skins are used for garments and trim. © Bryan Skerry |
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Fur and Leather That Can Look Like Any Other
Seal fur is used for a variety of purposes, including garments and trim. Seal fur is manipulated through a host of processes, including dyeing and shaving, which often renders the final products indistinguishable from other fur products.
Seal leather is used in a number of ways, including in fashion garments, shoes, accessories and even furniture coverings. Seal leather cannot be distinguished from other leathers by consumers.
Given the widespread public opposition to commercial seal slaughter, some retailers deliberately mislead consumers by telling them that sealskin is actually another fur product. Seal oil manufacturers have also admitted to deliberately mislabelling seal oil as "marine oil."
Mislabelling of Seal Oils
Seal oil is sold in the European Union for a variety of purposes, including industrial lubricants, animal feed additives, pet food additives and supplements for human consumption. The products most widely available on the retail market in the EU are seal oil capsules for human consumption, and seal oil as a supplement for pets. When sold in capsule form for human consumption, seal oil, along with fish oil, is often labeled as "marine oil" or simply as "omega 3." This can lead to general confusion in the marketplace, and the likelihood that some consumers might avoid all "marine oil" or "omega 3" supplements to ensure they are not consuming seal oil.
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Seal dragged across the ice© HSI/Mark Glover |
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Evidence of Deliberate Mislabelling
There is evidence that seal processing companies mislabel seal products to circumvent market obstacles. In 2006, John Kearley, General Manager of Carino Company Limited (the largest seal product processor in Canada and a subsidiary of Norway's GC Rieber), testified before the Canadian House of Commons. He said:
"In the United States, we've had the Marine Mammal Protection Act now for a number of years, which put a ban on the importation of seal products into the United States... When we ship samples of our product to our parent, we have to disguise the description of what it is, because it may be seized by U.S. Customs. We have to disguise what we are shipping. Just recently, I shipped samples of our seal oil for analysis and I termed it marine oil so that people looking at the document would not know whether it was lube oil or whatever. You have to do these things."
Consumers have discussed in online forums their confusion regarding the origins of "marine oil":
"I was able to contact Arctic Vigor and asked them about the contents of their marine oil. I was told it is seal oil from Northern Canada and there is no fish oil in it... The reason why they call it "marine oil" is for marketing purposes... I will admit when she said it was seal, I was not very excited."
Public opposition to seal product trade in the EU, and the difficulty consumers have in distinguishing seal products, make it likely that consumers are choosing to avoid like products to ensure that they are not consuming seal products.
Current Seal Product Prohibitions in Member States
As a result of concerns expressed by citizens, nine EU Member States have either prohibited seal product trade or announced their intentions to do so.
The prohibitions range from bans on trade in all products from harp and hooded seals (Belgium) to all products from harp, hooded and cape fur seals (The Netherlands) to all seal product trade (Germany). In Italy, a licensing scheme has been established as a temporary restriction to trade in seal products. Similar to the situation with cat and dog fur, the coexistence of these seal product trade prohibitions, in their various forms, implies that traders are faced with a set of different legal requirements in the different Member States they wish to trade in, import or export to. As a consequence, the internal markets for fur, marine oil, and leather may be fragmented.
