{"id":1747,"date":"2010-03-15T13:24:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T17:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/03\/15\/canadas-seal-hunt-fights-back\/"},"modified":"2010-03-15T13:24:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-15T17:24:00","slug":"canadas-seal-hunt-fights-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/03\/15\/canadas-seal-hunt-fights-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada’s seal hunt fights back"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

Cute, eh?<\/p>\n

People do get touchy about things like animals. Or food.
Not to mention money.<\/p>\n

Many North Americans love a good steak, sliced from an animal Hindus consider sacred. Observant Muslims and Jews avoid pork. I can think of several cultures that consider a nice, tender dog quite the delicacy. As a child, our son was horrified to learn I quite enjoy lamb. (\u201cMom, how can you eat babies<\/span>?\u201d) Meanwhile, my vegetarian husband won’t eat anything that has to be killed first \u2013 excluding plants. <\/p>\n

Japan is widely reviled for continuing to hunt and eat whale. That nation is getting even more bad PR<\/a> thanks to The Cove<\/span><\/a>, an Oscar-winning feature documentary on a methodical dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan <\/p>\n

Enter Canada and the seal hunt. <\/p>\n

Images of baby seals getting clubbed to a bloody death on white ice flows proved so gruesome that the practice has been banned since 1987.<\/span> But more restricted seal harvests continue, and remain a significant economic activity<\/a> in some communities where there isn’t much else going on. <\/p>\n

Canada’s East Coast seal hunt is the largest of its kind in the world, with an average annual kill of about 300,000 harp seals. It exported around $5.5 million worth of seal products such as pelts, meat, and oils to the EU in 2006.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Animal rights groups, such as Sea Sheperd<\/a>, have worked to end economic seal hunts that have little to do with subsistence hunting. The campaigns succeed to the point that the European Union enacted a ban on most seal products which will take effect in August 2010.<\/p>\n

The seal hunt has defenders too, including this industry site<\/a>, which has a page dedicated to challenging what it calls ‘myths’<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Canada’s Gov. Gen. Micha\u00eblle Jean made headlines last May when she pointedly ate raw seal heart on a tour up north. That played very well in Canada, since she was visiting a local community where hunting is a matter of cultural and personal survival.<\/p>\n

The issue moved to Parliament Hill last week Wednesday, when politicians from all parties eagerly partook of a lunch spread featuring seal, sponsored by Liberal Quebec Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette, in support of the seal industry. <\/p>\n

The event generated wide coverage, from local media<\/a>, to European and British press<\/a>, all the way to Australia<\/a>. <\/p>\n

According to this CBC account<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It is the first time seal has been served in the 100-year-old Parliament Hill institution. And all the double-smoked bacon wrapping, port reductions and organic vegetable medleys couldn’t mask the meal’s true intention: telling animal rights groups and the European Union to get stuffed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Reuter’s report that included 6 photos<\/a> quoted Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff thusly:<\/p>\n

“The Europeans simply don’t know what they’re talking about. Since time began human beings have lived with animals and they have culled animals…It tastes delicious, actually. It’s a meaty taste, a little gamy\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the face of the EU ban, Canada has looked elsewhere to market seal products, including reaching out to the Chinese market<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These issues get complicated. Personally, I’m very sympathetic to the earth-friendly vegetarian cause, but I can’t see that choice working for everyone. It also seems very hard to dismiss arguments about animal intelligence, the threat of extinction and outright cruelty. <\/p>\n

On the other hand, maintaining it’s OK to eat very smart creatures – like pigs and octopus – while making dolphins and dogs off limits, seems culturally selective to the point of hypocrisy. <\/p>\n

When humans kill animals, what moral and ecological code makes sense – without playing favorites among countries? Or species?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cute, eh? People do get touchy about things like animals. Or food. Not to mention […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}