E-mail A Friend Tell a friend about the information found on this page by sending them an e-mail.   Your Name: Your E-mail:   Type an e-mail address, then click add: Add a Personal Message: (Optional)

January/February 2000 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Editor’s Notebook Inside Story Feature: Seal wars Curious by nature

importance |  population |  tools |  economics |  subsidies
debate |  products |  future

The seal hunt has long played a vital role in Newfoundland’s economy and culture. In the 19th century, sealing was second only to the cod fishery in economic importance. Before the Second World War, whitecoats accounted for nearly 90 percent of the Newfoundland sealing fieet’s catch.

Seals are also hunted off Labrador, Îles de la Madeleine, the Quebec North Shore, Cape Breton Island and at aboriginal communities in the North. Sealing provides income to about 11,000 sealers in Eastern Canada.

Today’s commercial hunt is divided between landsmen (who travel to the hunt on foot or in boats under 20 metres) and large-vessel hunters (hunting from boats longer than 20 metres).

In 1996, 11,221 sealing licences were issued. The total allowable catch since 1997 has been set by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans at 275,000 animals a year. The recorded catch, numbering 282,000 harps in 1998, does not account for seals killed in the hunt but not recovered.

The harp seal population had been kept in decline by hunting pressure after the Second World War and until the 1970s, when numbers reached their lowest: fewer than two million animals. Numbers appear to have increased steadily since. The last survey of harp seal pup production, conducted by DFO in 1994, estimated the herd at 4.8 million.

Tools of the hunt carried by sealers on the ice include a hardwood club similar in size and appearance to a baseball bat, a sculping knife, and a sharpening steel. Those hunting from large vessels may carry a hakapik, a long, wood-handled weapon originating in Norway. It has an iron head with a curved spike on one side and a blunt projection on the other.

Under federal regulations, marine mammals can only be hunted in a manner designed to kill quickly and only with a club, hakapik, high-powered rifle, or shotgun firing slugs.

The economic value of the seal hunt is $12 million annually, according to DFO. The Newfoundland government and the Canadian Sealers Association say the 1998 hunt was worth $25 million, with pelts, meat and oil products taken into account. Ifaw says the hunt’s value has been exaggerated and that after subtracting government subsidies, it is worth about $2 million.

A subsidy for seal meat products was introduced in 1995. The 1999 federal meat subsidy was capped at $250,000. All direct subsidies to the industry will be eliminated this year.

The cod versus seal debate rages on. Since the 1992 cod moratorium was imposed, there have been only modest gains in the status of most groundfish, while the harp seal population appears to have increased dramatically. Some argue that since seals eat fish, including cod, and since there are many seals and not many cod, then predation by seals is preventing recovery of cod stocks. A further argument is that the large number of seals compared to cod is a symptom of an out-of-balance ecosystem and that failure to act risks extinction of cod stocks.

The Fisheries Resource Conservation Council reported in 1999 that seals kill more cod from Canadian stocks north of Halifax than any other factor. It advocated reducing herds up to 50 percent in areas where cod stocks are scarce.

Others believe cod make up only a small part of the harp seal’s diet. According to DFO, harp seals in Canadian waters consume an estimated three million tonnes of food a year: 1.1 million tonnes of capelin, 600,000 tonnes of arctic cod, 340,000 tonnes of flatfish, 150,000 tonnes of Atlantic cod, and other fish. Adult harp seals consume one to 1.4 tonnes of food a year.

Seal products today include pelts, oil and meat. The average price paid for a pelt is $25 and they account for more than half the processed product value. Seal oil is the second-most valuable product. Sales are expected to grow with increased marketing of seal oil capsules containing Omega-3 fatty acids, believed to help reduce blood cholesterol levels. The Newfoundland government says such new products, including protein concentrates and pepperoni and salami, could increase the industry’s worth to $100 million in the next two to three years.

Fears about the future of communities on the Newfoundland coast are addressed in a 1999 report of the federal Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans: "There is a very genuine fear among coastal communities in Newfoundland and Labrador that the expansion of the harp seal threatens the recovery of cod and other groundfish stocks and thus any prospect of a return to fishing as an economic activity. This, in turn, undermines the viability of coastal communities. Without the prospect of work, the youth have no option but to leave and seek employment elsewhere. Without young people to carry the tradition, the communities will die out and a way of life will disappear."

top