Monday, April 04, 2005
Brave Canadian seal hunters in daring pup-cull

Courageous seal hunters in Canada have begun their annual cull of Harp seal pups to fuel the burgeoning fur market in Europe and Russia.

Brave hunters have risked their lives to save their livelihoods and have taken to the ice-floes off north-eastern Canada to do battle with viscous baby seals; to bash them on the head with a big stick and strip them of their fur, sometimes while still alive.

Make no bones about it. This is tough, man’s work. The Harp seal pups are known to be dangerous when cornered and will often bleat out loudly and try to waddle away when accosted by a group of hunters armed with heavy objects. And some of the pups are so hardy it may take 4 or 5 blows to kill them off.

And those pups resilient enough to survive the hunt finally succumb when stripped of their skin on board one of the factory ships.

The working conditions are extremely harsh. Temperatures can drop to –10° and when the only thing protecting you from the elements is an $2,000 Gortex suit and a supply ship full of provisions, it takes a real pioneer spirit to go seal hunting. And although the pups only weigh some 10-15kg, when hauling some 200 carcasses a day, backs can be hurt without the proper workplace health and safety training.

“These are brave boys,” said Chuck Noble, Operations Manager for a family owned seal fur firm in Halifax, Newfoundland.

“When armed only with a 4 foot blunt heavy club, these seal pups can be formidable quarry. Don’t let those big black eyes and cute faces tell you otherwise,” he said.

“I know hunters who have strained their backs, slipped on the ice and caught a cold, all from embarking on daring seal-pup hunting trips. The environment is unforgiving and the rewards are meagre.”

“These men are proud Canadians, carrying on a noble custom brought down through many generations. My father taught me how to club seal-pups and his father taught him. The people may have changed, but the technology hasn’t. Its more a vocation than a job; its in the blood.”

“It takes an especially heroic kind of soul to take on seal-pup clubbing as a job."

"Most of the men-folk round here wear those padded, checked shirts, traditional dress for coastal community type people and they drink a famous, manly beer, so I think they’re the right sort,” said Noble.

“Whacking baby seals is the mainstay of the community and contributes at least half a per-cent to the local GDP. It is an important industry and we’re gonna fight to keep it,” he concluded.

The annual cull has received widespread condemnation, not only for its cruel and barbaric practices, but for being unsustainable. This year, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans decided that a quota of 360,000 pups is sustainable and will have no long-term impact on Harp seal numbers, though to be in the region of 5 million.

The Department says it has learned the lessons of the mid-1980s, when it was in charge of setting the annual quota for cod catches off the Grand Banks, shortly before the total collapse of the stock, from which it is unlikely to recover.

But supporters of the cull say they are only reacting to a resurgence in the popularity of seal pup fur from wealthy fashion houses in Europe. Each pelt can sell for as much as $45 US in Norway and Russia, the most lucrative of the fur markets.

“It is simply supplying the demand in the market,” said a Canadian Government spokesperson. “Seal-pup fur is not a boutique, non-essential material but nature’s gift to the cold nations of the planet. It is durable, insulating and fashionable.”

“Activist groups that oppose the scheme are just cashing in on the cute looks of the seal-pups and are pandering to faint-hearted. If people don’t wish to see seal-pups clubbed on the head with a big heavy club, they should stop demanding their fur,” the spokesperson said.

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