In the mid-1990s, the Canadian government—with the population of harp seals now over 5 million—took steps to expand the fleet of small vessels hunting “mature” seals. It kept the ban on hunting 6- to 12-day-old whitecoats in place, but quietly raised harvesting quotas for beater seals (2-12 weeks old), providing direct and indirect subsidies to small-vessel fishermen and seal-processing facilities to revive commercial interest. Before long, prices, markets, and profits for seal pelts were rising. Today, this small-vessel hunt is the biggest in over a half century, turning what activists once saw as a lesson in how to use the media to alter consumer consciousness into a lesson on the power of governments and entrepreneurs to keep consumption rising in an era of globalizing markets.
The resurgence of the seal hunt came as a slow surprise to many anti-sealing activists. Many are now back campaigning, furious at what they see as a deceptive reopening of the world’s greatest annual slaughter of marine mammals. Once again, Greenpeace and the International Fund for Animal Welfare are cooperating in an anti-sealing coalition, along with more than 50 other groups. The celebrities are back as well, from actor Martin Sheen to musician Paul McCartney. The campaign is not much different from the one in the 1970s and 1980s—with media stunts at the spring hunt, footage of sealing, petitions for politicians, efforts to disrupt markets, and boycotts of Canadian seafood.
But, this time, activists have made little headway influencing governments or consumers. The total harp seal catch remains high—with the decrease in the 2007 quota (by 55,000 seals) a response to poor ice conditions, not pressure from environmentalists or animal rights activists. Why is today’s campaign less successful? A variety of factors seem to be at play. Some consumers—even in Europe—are now wearing furs to show their antagonism to environmental preaching. More consumers seem to see today’s seal hunt as sustainable and humane. The Canadian government is also far more adept at handling the mainstream media: public relations teams have countered the activists with images of salt-of-the-earth fishermen, statistics showing an abundance of seals and a shortage of cod, and the language of sustainable and humane management.
In addition, unlike the activist coalition of the 1970s and 1980s, today’s coalition is diffuse and spread thin: many groups are tiny outfits; the major groups of the past—in particular, Greenpeace and the Inter-national Fund for Animal Welfare—are now complex organizations pursuing multiple interests. Coordinating a campaign is more difficult, and for some campaigns, such as the boycott of Canadian seafood, sharp differences can emerge over appropriate strategies. The globalization of activism and governments’ greater skill at turning idealism into cynicism are also making it much harder for activists to use the media as a free pathway to change the “consciousness” of consumers.
The most significant factor countering the influence of today’s anti-sealing activists, however, is the globalization of markets for Canadian seal furs. Activists continue to make gains in Europe—for example, in 2007, Belgium, Italy, and Luxembourg banned the import of all seal products, not just whitecoats. But these markets are tiny. On the other hand, in Russia and China, which now import 90 percent of processed harp seal furs (treated and dyed), activists have made little progress influencing either consumers or governments. To take a closer look at this activist campaign, we need to step back to the mid-1990s and review how the Canadian government managed to revive the commercial hunt for harp seals.
The hunt for harp seals since 1996 is not, the Canadian government stresses, like the commercial hunt of the past. Under the Marine Mammal Regulations, it remains illegal to harvest, trade, or sell whitecoats, ensuring a more “humane” hunt. Quotas on the total allowable harvest are carefully set to ensure that the hunt is “sustainable.” Moreover, sealers in vessels over 65 feet (19.8 meters) are permitted to participate only as “collectors” so that out-of-work fishermen with small vessels may earn income from the hunt.
Back in 1995, the government justified raising the quota on the total allowable catch to protect the collapsing cod stocks on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland from the “exploding” population of harp seals. “There is only one major player fishing that stock,” Canadian Fisheries Minister Brian Tobin explained. “And his first name is harp, and his second name is seal.”1 Indeed, Tobin estimated that harp seals were consuming a billion Atlantic cod every year. Thus, given the abundance of seals and the poverty of the Atlantic Canadian fishing communities, expanding the commercial harvest was the only rational and responsible course to take.2
Following this logic, the Canadian government raised the quota on harp seals for the 1996 hunting season to 250,000. It also began to provide millions of dollars in direct and indirect subsidies to revive the industry (aided by rising pelt prices). The turnaround was immediate. The harp seal catch for 1996 jumped to over 240,000, rising again in 1998 to over 280,000, before falling off to just under 245,000 in 1999. Although low pelt prices, high operating costs, and poor ice conditions combined to reduce the 2000 harvest by more than half—to only 91,600—the catch rebounded to over 226,000 in 2001.3
Over this time, the Canadian sealing industry was working hard to expand markets for harp seal pelts. The Canadian Seal Industry Development Council, for example, went on tour in the late 1990s to convince the fur industry to reintroduce seal pelts. This was—and remains—a formidable challenge: 80 percent of Canadian furs are sold in the United States, where the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits the sale of beater pelts.
Seal furs were slowly coming back into fashion internationally, however, in part because demand for real fur coats began to rise in the late 1990s. Supermodels, who once declared they’d “rather go naked than wear furs,” began to arrive at fashion shows draped in real furs. Retail sales of furs in 2002, for example, rose over 10 percent globally, making it the “best-performing luxury item” of the year. Furs were becoming trendy among younger consumers: the average age of customers in 2002 fell from 49 to 35. Even in the United Kingdom, once one of the world’s most hostile markets to furs, retail sales of fur and fur accessories rose by 35 percent in 2002. Some young customers—with enough irony to make even a hardened swiler smile—were telling marketers they were “tired of being preached at” and felt a sense of rebellion with the purchase.4
With the market for harp seals surging, the Canadian government ended direct subsidies to sealing in 2001.5 The total harp seal catch in 2002—312,367—broke the 300,000 mark for the first time since the 1960s. (The Canadian government allowed sealers to exceed that year’s quota because of the exceptionally low harvest in 2000.) With international prices for harp pelts holding strong, and with seal meat and other seal products adding another million dollars, the total landed value of harp seals for 2002 was around C$21 million—nearly four times higher than the previous year (C$5.5 million).6
To further expand the now-flourishing sealing industry, the Canadian government raised the triennial quota for harp seals to 975,000 over the next three years (2003 through 2005). Canadian sealers took 283,500 harp seals in 2003, although, with a dip in pelt prices, the landed value fell to just C$13 million. In 2004, the Canadian government issued over 15,000 seal licenses (including professional, assistant, and personal use) and, hunting under favorable weather conditions, sealers took 366,000 harp seals—the most in 50 years or so.7 The landed value of seals in 2004 was almost C$16.5 million: higher than 2003, though lower than 2002.8
The pelts of seals under the age of 3 months accounted for most of this harvest, in part reflecting market demand. The average price of harp seal pelts varies widely depending on the age of the seal, and harp seals under a year old are the most valuable on the world market. Thus, in 2004, the average landed value of a ragged jacket pelt (from a molting seal, 2-5 weeks old) was C$16, and that of a beater pelt (from a fully molted seal, less than 3 months old) was C$48, whereas the average landed value of an adult pelt was only C$7.9 In 2004, the market for seal meat remained small, as it did for seal oil, although the growing demand for oils rich in Omega 3 has the potential to change that for the better.10
As in the 1980s, the main consumer markets for harp seal pelts are overseas. About two-thirds are exported raw (untreated). Norway was the primary buyer of raw pelts in 2005, importing nearly 130,000; Greenland was second, at 46,600, followed by Finland, at just over 19,000. The rest of the pelts are “dressed” (treated and dyed) in processing plants in Canada. About 90 percent of these in 2005 were sold to brokers in Russia and China. The demand here is rising quickly. Dion Dakins of the Barry Group of Companies, which runs two fur-dressing plants in Newfoundland, explains the trend: “Russia is the No. 1 customer, with China coming on with insatiable demand.”11
A Sustainable and Humane Harvest?
According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the population of Northwest Atlantic harp seals is stable and growing despite the now-high catches of beater seals: the total seal population was estimated at 5.2 million in 1999, 5.5 million in 2000, and 5.9 million in 2004. The total allowable catch for 2005 was set at 319,500. Even though the 2005 harvest was lower than 2004, the total landed value was about the same (C$16.5 million) because of higher pelt prices. The average price of pelts in 2005 was about C$52—up 18 percent from the 2004 average price.12
The Canadian government raised the allowable catch of harp seals slightly for 2006, to 325,000—with another 10,000 set aside for First Nations communities. This was in place for 2007 as well, but after so many pups drowned in the broken ice of the Gulf, the government decided to lower it to 270,000 just as the spring hunt was starting.13 The northwest Atlantic herd is now three times larger than it was in the 1970s, and, although higher quotas in recent years will likely reduce its numbers slightly once the remaining beaters mature into breeder seals, it is at no risk of becoming endangered.
Some government officials go even further, reversing the arguments of many environmental activists, and characterizing the hunt as necessary for a sustainable ecosystem. “It’s not just about revenue,” explains Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn in 2006. “It’s about sustainability of a herd. What happens if we don’t ensure there’s a proper balance in nature? What happens if the herd continues to grow to the point where... they have self-destructed?”14
New regulations strive to ensure that sealers obtain the full commercial benefits of a seal carcass (and thus help avoid waste). As of 2003, sealers must land the entire carcass or pelt—to prevent them from harvesting a seal only for a portion (such as an organ). Under a Canadian federal apprenticeship, they must also learn how to kill swiftly and efficiently. When using a club or hakapik, for example, they must “strike the seal on the forehead until its skull has been crushed.”15(More sealers, however, now shoot seals from a boat since beaters are more agile and wary than whitecoats.) A 2003 amendment to the Marine Mammal Regulations requires hunters to test a seal’s eyes for a blinking reflex by touching them to ensure brain death before skinning and bleeding begins. (Previously, hunters were allowed to check the skull to confirm death.) The federal government claims these regulations ensure more than ever before a “quick and humane dispatch of animals.”16 The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association concurs, concluding in a recent study: “currently, the large majority of seals taken during this hunt are killed in an acceptably humane manner.”17
Such regulations, like others of the last four decades, have done little to appease environmental and animal rights activists. Many are once again outraged, and a global campaign to end the commercial seal hunt is again swirling off the Newfoundland coast.
Over 50 activist groups now oppose Canada’s seal hunt. Once again, these activists are trying to frame the debate in language that challenges consumers to consider the moral and environmental consequences of the hunt. Groups like the Humane Society of the United States call it “the largest commercial slaughter of marine mammals on the planet.” Groups like the International Fund for Animal Welfare charge that the “annual baby seal hunt” is still “unacceptably cruel.”18 The Green Party of Canada agrees, opposing the hunt because of its “extreme brutality.” Actor Martin Sheen, speaking in his West Wing presidential voice on behalf of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, calls for an end to the “annual ritual of blood and slaughter of the innocents.” Former Beatle Paul McCartney, speaking to the press during a protest in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in March 2006, called the hunt “heartbreaking,” and “a stain on the character of the Canadian people.” The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society talks about the Canadian government’s “kill quota” and its “death sentence” for millions of baby harp seals.19
The IFAW estimates that hunters killed almost one-third of the harp seals born in 2005 and that, even though these seals were not whitecoats, they were still young and defenseless pups. According to the Humane Society of the United States, many of the seals were as young as 12 days old, while nearly all—about 95 percent from 2000 to 2005—were under 12 weeks old.20
All of these groups see the clubbing of beater seals as inhumane. Nor, they are quick to point out, is shooting them a humane alternative: many of these seals suffer before sealers arrive from the boat or when they slip away to die. Groups like the IFAW and Sea Shepherd Society further claim that hunters are still skinning seals alive. Indeed, the IFAW charges that, despite the new regulations, few sealers actually check for a blinking reflex before they begin skinning; the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society puts the proportion of seals skinned alive at 42 percent.21
For some activists, the current hunt is not just barbaric, but unsustainable, too. The IFAW argues that the resurgence of sealing since the mid-1990s is a result of short-term political decisions rather than long-term conservation, that the number of seals “culled” is neither “biologically sustainable” nor “scientifically justifiable.” Moreover, the estimates of ecological impacts based on “quotas” and “landed catch” are misleading; they do not adequately account for seals shot and lost or discarded because of damage to the pelt.22
Greenpeace also opposes the hunt on environmental grounds. It calls the 2003-2005 quotas “irresponsible” and based on science that is “inaccurate, incomplete and out-of-date.” The quotas, it argues, do not sufficiently account for many complex factors that threaten the vitality of the Northwest Atlantic seal herds: “struck and lost rates,” illegal hunting, seals killed as bycatch in fishing nets, the hunt of the same seal herds in Greenland, and uncertainty in predicting seal birthrates 10-15 years into the future, to name just a few. Nor do they account for the potential of climate change to disrupt whelping ice conditions (as happened in 2007) and thus threaten the survival of the entire seal population.23
In January 2005, a coalition of activist groups against the seal hunt also began a Canadian seafood boycott campaign, targeting principally U.S. and Canadian retail stores and restaurants, in particular, North America’s largest seafood chain, Red Lobster, with over 600 restaurants. Included in the coalition are the Animal Alliance of Canada, the Humane Society of the United States, the World Society for the Protection of Animals, Environment Voters, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (but not Greenpeace or the International Fund for Animal Welfare, even though both are members of the Unified Opposition against the hunt). The goal of the boycott is “to take all the profits out of sealing, and for every year the seal hunt continues to directly cost those who kill the seals 50 to 100 times more than what they earn from the commercial seal hunt.”24
The coalition hopes to accomplish its goal by hurting the Canadian seafood industry, which grosses some C$3 billion a year, almost three-quarters from exports to the United States. Thus far, however, only a handful of buyers accounting for a tiny portion of Canadian seafood—ones like Wild Oats Markets, Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, and Original Fish Legal Sea Foods—have joined the boycott.
Many factors explain why today’s larger anti-sealing movement is not managing to influence consumers as much as the smaller movement did in the 1970s and 1980s. Because their groups are diffuse, today’s activists scatter their energies, creating more potential for contradictory messages, and increasing the chances for mistakes that discredit their campaigns. Their tactics are no longer novel news items; far more individuals and groups are competing for that minute or so of daily protest fame. More-over, the sealers and Canadian government are far more adept at constructing counterimages and counter-language in the media. And, perhaps immune to media horrors, perhaps rebelling against the moralistic tone of some campaigners, many consumers are simply harder to persuade.
Greenpeace and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the main activist groups of the past, are now larger and more complex organizations, which, at first glance, might seem to suggest a greater ability to challenge the hunt. But these groups are now less confrontational than they were in the 1970s and 1980s, and opposing the seal hunt is no longer so central to their mandates.
A glance at the history of IFAW over the last three decades reveals a significant shift in its organizational structure, focus, and tactics. In 1979, the year Brian Davies moved IFAW headquarters from Fredericton, New Brunswick, to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, it had a staff of just 7; by 1997, when Frederick O’Regan took over from Davies as president, the number of employees in the Cape Cod office had risen to 70. Today its headquarters team includes more than 100 scientists, administrators, and specialists, with an annual payroll of over $3 million.
Worldwide, the IFAW now has over 200 employees and 13 offices. Its mandate both to end cruelty toward animals and to protect species has motivated campaigns for whales, elephants, seals, cats, and dogs, as well as a campaign to end the illegal trade in wildlife. In addition, the fund employs a rapid-response team to assist with the cleanup of oil spills and assist animals in distress. Its diverse branches employ diverse tactics, many of them practical, to achieve change. IFAW scientists, for example, are cooperating with Cornell University to develop an acoustic buoy to help detect whales in busy shipping lanes. The IFAW is also paying local lobstermen to replace floating ropes with sinking ropes to avoid snaring passing whales.25
Even as it pursues its broader mandate, the IFAW remains a leader in the anti-sealing coalition. This coalition is achieving some “victories.” It has managed, as noted above, to advance efforts in Europe to ban the import of all seal products, not just whitecoats, with Belgium, Italy, and Luxembourg imposing full bans by early 2007, if only temporarily. And, even though the European Parliament ultimately rejected a call in March 2007 for a full ban for all 27 members of the European Union, the European Commission decided to investigate the matter further.
But these “victories” are not equal to the ones in the 1980s. In China and Russia, which now import 90 percent of Canada’s dressed beater pelts, cultural and political factors are severely limiting the ability of activists to influence governments and consumers. “Our markets are in Russia and China,” Canadian exporter Dion Dakins explains, “and they couldn’t care less about Paul McCartney.”26 His comment nicely captures the toughest challenge for today’s anti-sealing activists struggling to alter the consciousness of consumers—the globalization of markets