Posted on 04/15/2006 9:32:55 PM PDT by Clive
Early next week, hundreds of exhausted, filthy sealers will return home from the East Coast's largest seal cull, their boats laden with pelts, flippers and blubber. But few camera crews will be on the wharves of Newfoundland and Labrador to film their homecoming.
The enduring image of Canada's 2006 seal hunt has already been captured. It belongs to Sir Paul McCartney, striding across an ice pan in snow boots and a red survival suit, then crouching beside a whitecoat on a frigid March afternoon. The former Beatle's star wattage also nabbed him a spot on Larry King Live, where he and his wife, Heather, berated Canadian sealers as barbarians in front of 40 million viewers.
It was the year celebrity interest in the East Coast seal hunt spiked again. It's not the first time nor will it be the last. In some parts of Newfoundland, the arrival of anti-seal-hunt activists with reporters in tow is nearly as old a tradition as the seal hunt itself, a sure sign of spring's arrival.
Sir Paul's entry into the seal debate had a snowball effect, prompting other international celebrities -- including Brigitte Bardot, Pamela Anderson and British rock singer Morrissey -- to chime in, voicing their opposition to the clubbing and shooting of young harp seals each spring.
The protests may be growing, but so, too, is the industry. Buoyed by high fur prices and burgeoning markets in Russia and China, seal producers say 2006 could be one of their best years yet.
"Our markets are in Russia and China and they couldn't care less about Paul McCartney," said Dion Dakins of the Barry Group of Companies, which operates two seal processing plants in Newfoundland. "They're certainly not going to have Paul McCartney telling them they can or can't have seal."
Today, a seal pelt fetches about $70, compared with $15 in the mid-1990s. The Barry Group processes 120,000 to 150,000 pelts a year. Once treated and dyed, about 90 per cent of the pelts go to brokers in Russia and China.
"Russia is the No. 1 customer, with China coming on with insatiable demand," Mr. Dakins said, noting Russia's burgeoning middle class with new money for luxuries, combined with a vast north, where winters are as fierce as Canada's.
This doesn't mean Newfoundland sealers get rich. With luck, a sealer will return from the spring hunt with between $7,000 to $15,000.
This year's protests touched a nerve in Newfoundland and Labrador, the site of Canada's largest seal hunt, where sealers have for centuries depended on the hunt as a crucial supplement to their incomes. Sealers, traditionally a thick-skinned lot, say they're sick of the international publicity, which depicts them as sadistic and bloodthirsty.
"Paul McCartney -- that really cut deep," said Jack Troake, a fisherman and sealer from Twillingate in central Newfoundland. Last Sunday, Mr. Troake left for the Labrador seal hunt, as he has nearly every spring for four decades. He tuned in to Larry King Live the night Sir Paul appeared and was angered at the pop star's description of the East Coast hunt. (The fact that Mr. King pronounced Newfoundland as "New-FIN-land" and Sir Paul, speaking from a Charlottetown studio, claimed he was in Newfoundland, did not impress other Canadians viewers.)
Sealing is a dangerous, gruelling pursuit, Mr. Troake said, conducted solely to put food on the tables of families in struggling, rural communities. "It's not pretty," said Mr. Troake, who is in his early 70s. "You kill any of God's creatures and it's not pretty."
Last Wednesday marked the beginning of the front hunt, the traditional name for the seal hunt off Newfoundland and Labrador's northeast coast. It's expected that more than 232,000 seals will be killed. The overall quota for 2006 is 325,000. This month, there were smaller hunts in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
In response to the protests, East Coast sealers and their supporters are fighting back, defending the hunt and taking aim at the motives of animal-welfare activists, namely the Humane Society of the United States and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. They claim the groups use celebrities to raise funds for their international organizations.
It's unclear how much impact the protests have had abroad, apart from the United States, which does not use seal products, and some European countries.
Mr. Troake's cousin, St. John's artist and filmmaker Anne Troake, made a sympathetic film about the seal hunt as seen through the eyes of several generations of Twillingate relatives.
Ms. Troake said the never-ending seal protests underscore the widening chasm between urban and rural societies. She said a man such as her cousin, whose family has scraped out a living through fishing, sealing and berry picking, has nothing in common with urban sophisticates. Most animal-rights activists are educated urbanites, she said, with no life experiences in the natural world.
At one point in her film, My Ancestors were Rogues and Murderers, Ms. Troake's 97-year-old grandmother, Jessica, recounts childhood memories of the seal hunt. She even remembers killing a seal herself at age 7, which she didn't enjoy.
"They are not people who have the Internet," Ms. Troake said of her sealing relatives. "Their lives are not tapped into the global media culture the way mine is. They do this to earn money. Yes, it is a tradition, but no one is getting rich off it.
"It's the difference between subsisting and having a little money to do things like take a trip. It's not a career. It's part of a number of things that enable people to live in these communities."
However, Ms. Troake's attempts to explain the sealers' point of view on film were lost on some activists. After it was screened last fall, someone threw a brick through a window of her house.
And Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, posted this critique of the film on a website:
"I have no respect for Newfoundland or Newfoundlanders. They debased Canada when they joined the nation in 1949 and they continue to embarrass us in the eyes of the world as they inflict bloody carnage on innocent creatures, peddling seal penises and their silly seal flipper pie to the ecological perverts who actually pay for these obscenities."
Outside Atlantic Canada, Canadians are divided about the seal hunt. While local animal-rights activists are against the hunt, the incursion of wealthy international stars making pronouncements about Canadian policy has turned off many Canadians.
Labrador Liberal MP Todd Russell said colleagues from the major federal parties have voiced support for sealers. Last week, Mr. Russell joined sealers in a seven-metre vessel for a two-day hunt off the Labrador coast.
Mr. Russell, who is part Inuit, said he made the cold, damp journey to show solidarity with his constituents, many of whom depend on the seal hunt to keep their families above the poverty line. Mr. Russell killed one seal on Thursday with a hakapik, the metal club with a sharp claw.
"It is humane," he said. "It's efficient."
Animal-rights activists claim the protests do have an impact. Past protests forced the ban on hunting whitecoat harp seals. In Europe, Belgium and the Netherlands have bills before their respective legislatures to ban seal products. Italy has a temporary seal product ban and Croatia has a full ban, said Gaia Angelina, a European representative for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
In Canada, an IFAW spokeswoman said the goal is to end the hunt. "You wouldn't believe the mail we get, the response we get and the phone calls we get," Ingrid Neilson said. "People are concerned all over the world. They're very passionate, the supporters of this issue. That's why we're working out there. And they're passionate to see it ended."
Meanwhile, on Thursday afternoon, up to 600 open boats and longliners were tracking the young harps, called "beaters." Most seals will be shot by rifles, but in congested areas, sealers will jump onto the ice and beat the seals with their hakapiks.
Seal hunters vow they will return next year, as do the protesters.
"We'll be building on all the extra attention and interest and awareness this year," Ms. Neilson said. "I think it's a really good opportunity."
Top seven raw seal skin importers in 2005
The more than 202,000 raw seal pelts exported last year represented about two thirds of the roughly 325,000 seals hunted. The figures at right only account for raw, untreated pelts, most of which are shipped to Norway, which has a large fur manufacturing infrastructure.
The rest are treated by fur "dressing" plants in Newfoundland. The Barry Group of Companies operates two plants and treats between 120,000-150,000 pelts per year. Once treated and dyed, about 90 per cent are shipped directly to brokers in Russia and China, respectively, the number one and two importers of treated seal skins from Canada.
Turkey 605 pelts
Russia 1,012 pelts
Germany 2,355 pelts
Hong Kong 3,290 pelts
Finland 19,287 pelts
Greenland 46,600 pelts
Norway 129,636 pelts
SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA, INTERNATIONAL TRADE DIVISION
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Note that the bulk of the countries listed are most vulnerable to islamist takeovers within and even before a generation.
Keep up the good work Canada. I like fur coats in cold weather. Tell "Sir" Paul to mind his own beeswax.
I would love to own a seal skin coat. Are there any available for sale in the US?
I've got three rules I've worked out as to whether a hunt is ethical or not. 1)Do you eat or otherwise use the animal? 2)Is the population sufficient to sustain the hunt? 3)Is the animal killed in a humane fashion? If you can answer yes to all three questions then the hunt is ethical and as near as I can tell the Canadians can.
Sir Paul and the touchy-feely types would much rather the cute furry things starved or got wiped out by some disease.
Now, if these were icky ugly desert critters, you can bet your brisket they would be mute on the subject.
Hey! These people are making a living the old fashioned way. Killing things and skinning them. Whatsamatta with that?
All fur prices are on the rise I think. Alaskans were getting $115 for marten this year; usually in the $40's. The all mighty dollar carries more weight than all the seal lovers on this earth.
seal flipper pie is pretty tasty.
If McCartney weren't just another stupid, hypocritical liberal he would support the seal hunters' families from his billions and make the hunt unnecessary. But no; just like all the other liberal hypocrites he demands that OTHER people sacrifice for his pet causes. Feh.
They banned fox-hunting in Britain, and indeed they are now trying to ban circus animals there too, here in Ireland they are trying to ban hare coarsing. It never stops.
I sold my pan traps 45 years ago. I can't believe marten is that high. Fantastic!
Larry King---40 million viewers----gimme a break. Maybe 40 million for a whole month of shows combined!!
Now, if these were icky ugly desert critters, you can bet your brisket they would be mute on the subject.
I believe it was Mark Twain who said that there are not any "Friends of the Rattlesnake" groups to protest the killing of snakes.
I believe the saying was "Money talks, BS walks." When you have kids to feed, lots of 'cute furry things' have appeal as either groceries or the means to get them.
Perhaps the pampered wealthy (and I do not begrudge them their money, really) and some of those other yay-hoos should have to skin their own dinner some time. It might give them a better sense of perspective.
I'd rather have the self respect of feeding my family than partake of Sir Paul's millions as welfare. I am sure at least some of these folks would be more insulted had he offered than ecstatic.
These little bastiges and their larger sea lion cousins are reeking havoc on our migratory salmon. A seal will swim up alongside a salmon and just take a bite out of its side, leaving it crippled a and worthless for anyone else.
Now, the environazis want to remove the dams from our rivers (along with our source of electricity) to save the salmon while they allow another protected species to prey on them.
Go figure.
Wife and I have taught in Athabaskan Villages where not a person trapped when fur prices were low, and they were there for a generation. The Indians were more than happy to see me enjoying setting snares & traps on their lands; Indians in Alaska are still very sharing people. During minus 10 warm spells, I'd get 5-6 marten out of a dosen or so sets. Actually, there was alot more game around Indian Villages than anywhere else in Alaska; says something for their game management I figure.
Up here most people use snares for wolves as those old 114's with teeth are getting scarce and AK wolf traps are 100 bucks apiece. Wolves pretty much stay as far from people as possible and nobody wants to snowmachine 50 miles to trapline at minus 40. A few guys fly and land, set kills and get a dozen wolves a year. Quite a few people use their own fur for making hats,mittens, and coats; my wife has sewed me up nice beaver mitts & hat and she can't sew.
I use my old beaver conibear for lynx & wolverine in cubby sets. Our ice is 4-5 feet thick so tough to trap beaver.
Actually, I have an old plott hound to keep bear away around house and I'm getting a pup shipped in this summer from B.C. I want to start this dog out on lynx which I could run until snow gets too deep in december. I really miss the nights out coonhuntin with dogs in years past back east. If we had any roads I'd have bear dogs but just too big of country where we're at. We have sled dogs, but they cost alot more than any hounds I ever had and not nearly as enjoyable.
Anyway, I miss all that fun trapping as a youngster also; and the bones just don't take the extreme cold like they use to. Just can't figure how the kids today rather play video games over spending time in the woods.
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