Seal hunting , or sealing , is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. The hunt is practiced in five countries: Canada, where most of the world's seal hunting takes place, as well as Namibia, Greenland, Norway, and Russia. Canada's largest market for seals is Norway (through GC Rieber AS).
Harp seal populations in the northwest Atlantic declined to approximately 2 million in the early 1970s, prompting stronger regulations on seal hunting. As a result of these regulations, the harp seal population in this area increased steadily since then until the mid 1990's, and was estimated at 5.9 million (between 4.6 and 7.2 million) in 2004. Harp seals have never been considered endangered; the Marine Animal Response Society estimates the harp seal population in the world is approximately 8 million (between 6.4 and 9.5 million).
As a result of population concerns, hunting is now controlled by quotas based on recommendations from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), and in 2007, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) set the "total allowable catch" (TAC) of harp seals at 270,000 per year. When compared to other seal hunts the Canadian harp seal hunt is by far the largest. The 2007 catch was 234,000 seals, down from 354,000 the year before. According to data gathered by the European Food Safety Authority, Norway claimed only 29,000 with Russia and Greenland landing 5,476 and 90,000 in 2007 respectively.
It is illegal in Canada to hunt newborn harp seals known as "whitecoats". It is also illegal to hunt young, hooded seals (bluebacks). When the seal pups begin to molt their downy white fur at the age of 12–14 days, they are called ragged-jacket and can be commercially hunted. After molting, the seals are called beaters, named for the way they beat the water with their flippers. The practice remains highly controversial, attracting significant media coverage and protests each year. Images from past hunts have become iconic symbols for conservation, animal welfare, and animal rights advocates. In Russia, a ban on the hunting of all harp seals less than one year old was announced on March 18, 2009, by the Russian government.
History
Traditional Inuit hunt
Archeological evidence indicates that the Native Americans and First Nations People in Canada have been hunting seals for at least 4,000 years. Traditionally, when an Inuit boy killed his first seal or caribou, a feast was held. The meat was an important source of fat, protein, vitamin A, vitamin B 12 and iron, and the pelts were prized for their warmth. The Inuit diet is rich in fish, whale, and seal.
The Inuit seal hunting accounts for three percent of the total hunt. The traditional Inuit seal hunting is excluded from The European Commission's call in 2006 for a ban on the import, export and sale of all harp and hooded seal products. The natsiq (ringed seal) have been the main staple for food, and have been used for clothing, boots, fuel for lamps, a delicacy, containers, igloo windows, and furnished harnesses for huskies. The natsiq is no longer used to this extent, but ringed seal is still an important food source for the people of Nunavut. Called nayiq by the Central Alaskan Yup'ik people, the ringed seal is also hunted and eaten in Alaska.
History of hunting elsewhere
Seal coats have long been prized for their warmth. Seal oil was often used as lamp fuel, lubricating and cooking oil, for processing such materials as leather and jute, as a constituent of soap, and as the liquid base for red ochre paint.
There is evidence that seals were hunted in northwest Europe and the Baltic Sea more than 10,000 years ago. The first commercial hunting of seals is said to have occurred in 1515, when a cargo of fur seal skins from Uruguay was sent to Spain for sale in the markets of Seville. Sealing became more prevalent in the late 1700s when seal herds in the southern hemisphere began to be hunted by whalers. In 1778, English sealers brought back from the Island of South Georgia and the Magellan Strait area as many as 40,000 seal skins and 2,800 tons of elephant seal oil. In 1791, 102 vessels, manned by 3000 sealers, were hunting seals south of the equator. The principal American sealing ports were Stonington and New Haven, Connecticut. Most of the pelts taken during these expeditions would be sold in China.
The Newfoundland seal hunt became an annually recorded event starting in 1723. By the late 1800s, sealing had become the second most important industry in Newfoundland, second only to cod fishing. IN 2007, the seal hunt provided about 0.5% of the Newfoundland economy.
Commercial sealing in Australasia appears to have started with Eber Bunker, master of the William and Ann who announced his intention in November 1791 to visit Dusky Sound in New Zealand, did call in that country and had skins on board when he got back to Britain. Captain Raven of the Britannia stationed a party at Dusky from 1792–93 but the discovery of Bass Strait, between mainland Australia and Van Diemen's Land, now called Tasmania, saw the sealers' focus shift there in 1798 when a gang including Daniel Cooper was landed from the Nautilus on Cape Barren Island. With Bass Strait over-exploited by 1802 attention returned to southern New Zealand where Stewart Island/Rakiura and Foveaux Strait were explored, exploited and charted from 1803 to 1804. Thereafter attention shifted to the subantarctic Antipodes Islands, 1805–7, the Auckland Islands from 1806, the south east coast of New Zealand's South Island, Otago Harbour and Solander Island by 1809, before focusing further to the south at the newly discovered Campbell Island and Macquarie Island from 1810. In this time sealers were active on the southern coast of mainland Australia, for example at Kangaroo Island. This whole development has been called the first sealing boom and sparked the Sealers' War in southern New Zealand. By the mid teens of the 19th century, sealing had faded. There was a brief revival from 1823 but this was very short-lived. Although highly profitable at times and affording New South Wales one of its earliest trade staples, its unregulated character saw its self-destruction. Some traders were Australian-based, notably Simeon Lord, Henry Kable, James Underwood and Robert Campbell, but American and British traders and seamen were engaged in it too, such as the Plummers of London and the Whitneys of New York.
By 1830, most seal stocks had been seriously depleted, and Lloyd's records only showed one full-time sealing vessel on its books. Since then, a number of nations have outlawed the hunting of seals and other marine mammals. The landmark North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911 was the first international treaty specifically addressing wildlife conservation. Today, commercial sealing is conducted by only five nations: Canada, Greenland, Namibia, Norway, and Russia. The United States, which had been heavily involved in the sealing industry, now maintains a complete ban on the commercial hunting of marine mammals, with the exception of indigenous peoples who are allowed to hunt a small number of seals each year.
Equipment and method
90% of sealers on the ice floes of the Front (east of Newfoundland), where the majority of the hunt occurs, use firearms. Both rifles and hakapiks are permitted in the hunt. Canadian sealing regulations describe the dimensions of the clubs and the hakapiks, and caliber of the rifles and minimum bullet velocity, that can be used. They state that: "Every person who strikes a seal with a club or hakapik shall strike the seal on the forehead until its skull has been crushed," and that "No person shall commence to skin or bleed a seal until the seal is dead," which occurs when it "has a glassy-eyed, staring appearance and exhibits no blinking reflex when its eye is touched while it is in a relaxed condition."
Hakapiks
Main article: HakapikOne method of killing seals is with the hakapik: a heavy wooden club with a hammer head and metal hook on the end. The hakapik is used because of its efficiency; the animal can be killed quickly without damage to its pelt. The hammer head is used to crush the skull, while the hook is used to move the carcass.
The hakapik is a tool of hunters in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Hunters who operate on the "front" off the northeast coast of Newfoundland primarily use high powered rifles. The hakapik is then used as a last resort in retrieving the animal from the ice floe, and ensuring it is dead.
Modern sealing
Products made from seals
Seal skins have been used by aboriginal people for millennia to make waterproof jackets and boots, and seal fur to make fur coats. Pelts account for over half the processed value of a seal, selling at over C$100 each as of 2006. According to Paul Christian Rieber, of GC Rieber AS, the difficult ice conditions and low quotas in 2006 resulted in less access to seal pelts, which caused the commodity price to be pushed up. One high-end fashion designer, Donatella Versace, has begun to use seal pelts, while others,
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