The Harp Seal Hunt In Newfoundland And Labrador

The harp seal hunt in Newfoundland and Labrador is a complex story involving aboriginal and non-aboriginal hunters, political and animal welfare activists and the various levels of government around the world. Despite being such an isolated hunting activity, it has gained international attention, both positively and negatively, starting one of the largest animal welfare vs. resource use fights in our history. Fraught with complex questions of sustainability, animal cruelty, Aboriginal rights and Newfoundlander and Canadian identity, this issue represents a puzzle of large magnitude with no simple solution, as is true for many environmental issues that we face today. It is essential, when examining issues like this one to evaluate human dimensions that determine how and why we use the natural resources available to us, particularly to examine how political and economical factors affect resource use policies.

The battle between the anti-seal hunt movement and pro-sealers has been fraught with discord and unbalanced power relations. The anti-sealing movement is represented by large NGO’s, such as IFAW, PETA and Greenpeace, celebrities and other high power individuals, whereas the pro-sealing side of the fight is composed mainly of sealers and fishermen in Newfoundland and Labrador. Though the Canadian government has been a part of the fight to support the seal hunt, they have been divided on the subject, with different departments supporting different goals. The sealers are generally divided into two categories, Aboriginal hunters and Newfoundlanders who have both been hunting seals in Newfoundland and Labrador for hundreds of years and rely heavily on the income generated from the hunt to survive. In order to understand some of the...

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...h environmental issues, those who counteract hunting practices and call for the end of the seal hunt are ignoring hunters rights, and the realities surrounding hunting use skewed media images to project a negative image onto sealers, which garners support for their cause. However this approach fails to recognize the traditional hunting methods of Inuit and local Newfoundlanders, the extensive regulations that exist to control hunting numbers and the rights that these people have to a resource that they have had access to for hundreds of years and which they now rely on for subsistence and other income (Knezevic 2009). It has been argued that hunting can be integrated into highly effective conservation efforts that highlight sustainable use as one of the most practical and functional approaches to conservation of wildlife and biodiversity (Mahoney and Jackson 2013).