Killing in the name of fashion

ON THE ice floes of Canada’s northeast coast more than a thousand hunters have embarked on the biggest and bloodiest seal hunt of modern times — a grisly annual ritual that has provoked an outcry from environmentalists the world over.
On the frozen surface of the Gulf of St Lawrence hunters armed with rifles, spears and clubs have begun to track down the first of more than 300,000 baby seals to be killed for their valuable pelts over the coming six weeks.
The seal hunting industry faced bankruptcy a few years ago because of lack of demand abroad. But with fur back in fashion, and seal skins now worth a record high of about £30 each, hunting the mammals is suddenly profitable and popular. Last year locals made about £7 million from the hunt and expect their biggest profits this year. But the bonanza will come at a steep price for Canada’s reputation. Shocking images and gruesome eyewitness accounts of the carnage were yesterday relayed around the world by environmental groups demanding a boycott of Canadian goods.
Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, told The Times from his ship, the Farley Mowat, in the Gulf of St Lawrence, of the bloody scenes he had witnessed as pups were stripped of their fur and carcasses abandoned in heaps on the ice. “It was wholesale carnage,” he said. “The ice was running with rivers of blood. It was a killing field. The seals were helpless. They are all three to seven weeks old. They can’t swim or get away. They never stood a chance.”
The spring hunt began on Tuesday off the Magdalen Islands and will expand over the next six weeks towards an area known as the Front, 40 miles north of Newfoundland. Yesterday bad weather in the area temporarily halted most hunting, which is due to resume today.
The Canadian authorities are aware of the potential damage that the hunt will have abroad, and have tried to hamper environmentalists recording the event. Yesterday coastguard vessels tried to seize the Farley Mowat. On another occasion Mr Watson said that a hunter pointed a hunting rifle at a member of his crew.
Environmentalists are pressing for a boycott of Canadian exports, particularly seafood to the US, to force the authorities to halt the killing. This year’s hunt is the biggest since the 1970s and has attracted some 1,500 seal hunters in 100 boats.
The Canadian Government said that the operation was carefully controlled and humane, brought millions of dollars to poor indigenous communities in the area, and would cause no lasting impact to the environment where seals are blamed for harming fish stocks.
Much of the criticism has been directed against the use of hakapiks, clubs fitted with a spike at one end, which are used to smash the pups’ skulls. The animals are allowed to be hunted after they begin to moult their fluffy white coats usually three to five weeks after birth. Markets for the pelts include Norway, China and Denmark. “Hunting methods were studied by the Royal Commission on Sealing in Canada and they found that the clubbing of seals, when properly performed, is at least as humane as, and often more humane than, the killing methods used in commercial slaughterhouses,” a Canadian government statement said.
However, Rebecca Aldworth, another environmentalist, said that she had seen seals still alive after they had been skinned. “We have seen seals that were moving around and breathing, that have been left in these piles, some left unconscious and crawling,” she said.
Most EU states, including Britain, have banned the import of skins from harp and hooded seals for the past two decades. The US and many other countries also ban all imports of seal products.