Reply #50: Canada keeps subsidizing the clubbing and skinning of infant seals in their nursery

[Wilms]

Why Are We Still Hunting Seals?

Canada keeps subsidizing the clubbing and skinning of infant seals in their nursery.

By Rex Weyler
Published: April 11, 2005

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Hunt is government subsidized

The landed value of the Canadian Harp seal hunt is worth between $5-21 million. In the most favorable recent year of good market conditions, 2002, the landed value reached $21 million. The landed value in 2001 was $5.5 million, and last year, 2004, $16 million. Keep in mind that this gross landed value is highly subsidized. The actual net value in poor years may be zero. For political and bureaucratic reasons, the Canadian government directly subsidizes the Harp seal hunt for about $3-4 million annually, including capital costs, infrastructure, subsidized salaries, and other services.

Unaccounted subsidies include international promotion, regulation, enforcement, disrupting protests, DFO scientific studies, and so forth. The total of these subsidies remains unknown, buried in other budgets, but the industry is subsidized in Canada by $5-10 million annually, more than the gross value in some years.

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Although the DFO claims the hunt is part of Canada's culture, it remains simply a commercial harvest for an international fashion industry. The pelts go to the world fur markets, seal penises to the Asian aphrodisiac markets, and some seal oil and meat are consumed locally. To claim to be looking after indigenous cultures with a massive commercial seal hunt is a pretense. Never mind that Canadians decimated the indigenous Beothuk of Newfoundland. Economic and cultural arguments do not appear to remotely justify the clubbing and skinning of infant seals in their nursery on the Labrador ice floes, and the attendant disgrace of Canada worldwide.

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http://thetyee.ca/Views/2005/04/11/HuntingSeals/