Sealing Industry Advocates Vocal

29^th April 2009

Sealers and processors are raising alarms about the very low seal kill levels so far this year, noting that there is no certainty the markets will recover. Meanwhile, HSI Canada is urging the Canadian government to legislate an end to the commercial seal slaughter, coupled with a generous buyout of the sealing industry.

Skinned seal pup carcasses abandoned on the bloody ice © HSI

But there are others who would choose to deny reality in an attempt to keep this outdated industry going and convince Europeans not to end their trade in seal products. 

Canada's Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Gail Shea, launched a typical baseless attack on HSI Canada and Canadian Senator Mac Harb in response to our press conference releasing shocking footage of cruelty at the 2009 seal hunt. While offering no examples whatsoever to support her claim, she argued that we were "misleading" the public. Her strategy seems clear to us: Unable to deal with the horrible images of brutality that have emerged from the 2009 seal hunt, she is instead trying to shoot the messenger.

But it was perhaps the statements by Knut Nygaard, director of the Norwegian-owned Carino Company Ltd—the largest seal fur processing plant in Canada—that were most telling. In speaking to a Newfoundland radio station, Mr Nygaard recently noted the need to improve the international image of the seal hunt. His solution: The brutal photos and video people are seeing of the seal hunt should not be in circulation. He claimed that we don't see the inside of slaughterhouses, so we shouldn't see pictures coming from the ice floes.

It speaks volumes that the top strategy of sealing industry proponents is either to discredit those who would provide images of the seal hunt to the public, or simply to argue that these images should not be shown at all.

The Canadian government should realise that if the only way to protect the seal slaughter is to ensure no one can see what really happens out on the ice—then it is time for the slaughter to end.

Senator Mac Harb noted at last week's press conference that the Canadian government has failed its people in refusing to end the seal hunt. It is his hope—and ours—that the European Union will do on behalf of its own citizens what the Canadian government refuses to do for Canadians... by ending the cruel trade in seal products, end the undeniable suffering of millions of seals.