For months, The HSUS has been attempting to work with Darden Restaurants, parent company of the international seafood chain Red Lobster, to end the Canadian seal hunt, which slaughters hundreds of thousands of harp seals annually. We have urged Darden executives to join our increasingly popular Canadian seafood boycott by using its strength as a major importer of seafood to persuade the Canadian government to stop the hunt forever.
To date, Darden has refused to engage The HSUS in a dialogue. We, at first, surmised the company’s response was based on a failure to understand the brutality and needlessness of the hunt. As HSUS Senior Vice President for Wildlife and Habitat Protection John Grandy told the press, "We fear that Red Lobster has chosen to turn their backs on the baby seals based on complete misinformation."
However, a recent investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and American Public Media’s Marketplace offers another perspective into Darden's worldview on the exploitation of wildlife: that the company with annual sales in the billions apparently cares as much about loosening protections for wildlife as it does about tightening them.
Feeding the Hunger for Animals
The CPI/Marketplace investigation uncovered the fact that Darden has been the principal contributor to the International Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources (IFCNR), an organization whose stated mission is to "communicate, educate, and advocate for the environmentally sound, ethical, socially just, and sustainable use of Nature's resources." According to the investigation, Darden "has given a total of $574,000 to IFCNR from 2000 through 2004, which was more than a third of its total support."
Because IFCNR is a U.S. nonprofit organization, its ability to lobby domestically is limited, but IFCNR does actively attend conferences of the parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), with the stated purposed of promoting the needs of corporations that require access to the world's animals to bolster their bottom lines. One glimpse at IFCNR's funders gives you an idea of whom the foundation represents in these international meetings: the National Trappers Association, International Fur Trade Association, Maryland Fur Trappers Association, Japan Whaling Association, and the infamous whaling group, Institute of Cetacean Research.
Then there is IFCNR's ties to U.S. Representative Richard Pombo (R-CA), chair of the House Resources Committee and architect of legislation that would gut the Endangered Species Act. Pombo, who's also responsible for a recent working proposal to sell 16 national parks to developers, was the chairman of an IFCNR subsidiary, Sustainable Use Parliamentarians Union, from its formation in 2000 until July 2005. (He has been replaced by another congressman, Dennis R. Rehberg, a Republican from Montana.)
What's more, IFCNR allegedly paid for two international trips for Pombo, costing at least $23,000, neither of which Pombo nor the IFCNR reportedly paid taxes on. According to the CPI/Marketplace investigation, the law "requires Pombo to return the costs of the foreign trips to the foundation. If not, both the foundation and the member of Congress could face stiff penalties from the IRS."
Pombo, in the CPI/Marketplace report, took pains to distance himself from IFCNR, but the Congressman has previously embraced SUPU's mission, particularly in a statement he released in conjunction with the Third General Assembly Meeting of the World Council of Whalers held in Nelson, New Zealand in November 2000. "Too often," Pombo commented, "elected representatives do not have sufficient information to influence their government national policy on these issues. It is the purpose of SUPU to alter that situation."
Pombo himself has on at least two occasions, in 1998 and 2001, read pro-whaling statements into the Congressional record. Also, the Congressman as a member of the U.S. delegation to the 2000 Conference of the Parties to CITES publicly supported several proposals allowing a limited trade in African ivory, but only backed down when then-President Bill Clinton instructed the delegation to vote pro-elephant conservation.
Darden and the Seal Hunt: All Talk
Thousands upon thousands of people have contacted Darden, asking the company to join the boycott of Canadian seafood. The public demands have been such that Darden has placed a statement on its web site to deflect criticism: "Red Lobster is not involved in the seal hunt in any way and does not buy or sell seal products." Darden makes this claim as if it were a proud statement of purpose; in fact, Darden is only obeying U.S. law, which bans the import of seal products into this nation.
The company also declares that, "...we don’t buy any products at all from Newfoundland." The point is open for argument. The HSUS has evidence that Darden purchases seafood from a major distributor, who in turn buys seafood from Newfoundland.
And although Darden claims to be "concerned about this [seal hunt] situation" and to have "met with the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans recently to express our concerns," the company has refused to oppose the slaughter and has refused to join the Canadian seafood boycott.
Still, as recently as September, The HSUS was willing to believe that the company might see the light.
In September, several HSUS staff members traveled to Darden's annual board and shareholders' meetings in Orlando to bring up the matter. We were met with a combination of suspicion and security guards. At the shareholders' meeting, a shareholder who was sympathetic to the seals' plight attempted to present a question about the company’s stand on the hunt, but she was stifled. A company executive would only declare that Darden was "surprised" that The HSUS was asking it to help end the hunt, and repeated the denial that the company sold seal products.
The Door Has Not Yet Closed
The HSUS is still willing to work with Darden to abolish the Canadian seal hunt, although we're clearly operating with more knowledge about the company's allies. The HSUS's Grandy recently wrote to Darden CEO Clarence Otis Jr. that the report "raises serious questions concerning Darden's adherence to the 'core values' of integrity, fairness, respect, and caring." Referring to the months that The HSUS fruitlessly pursued a dialogue with Darden, Grandy wrote that, "We now are left to wonder if there was ever good faith on the part of Darden and Red Lobster. Indeed…, it now seems clear why you would not meet with us and failed to substantively respond to virtually all of our letters to you."
Darden’s only recourse, Grandy advised Otis, "is to immediately abandon any association with IFCNR and…to join immediately and fully in the boycott of Canadian seafood and the effort to end the commercial seal slaughter."
Will Darden move to save its reputation by acting for the good of the seals? Certainly, saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of harp seals in one year would go a long way toward polishing the company's tarnished public image with those who love seals.
