‘Let’s fight, claw and spit back’
Patrick O’Flaherty takes firm stand on seal hunt — ‘never surrender’
By PATRICK O’FLAHERTY
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
“For the love and honour of J—s, Paddy,” my friend Tom remarked to me a few days ago, “will you give up writing about the cursed seal hunt?” I suspect not a few of my readers feel the same way. Let me beg their indulgence, and that of my editor, for foisting on them one more column on the subject. To try and see the hunt in perspective.

Opponents of the seal hunt may be divided into two categories. First, those who are opposed to the killing of animals. Period. Whether it is for food, clothing, income — whatever — they think killing animals is wrong. There is no way to convince those people to accept sealing, since they think cows, pigs, chicken, sheep, maybe even fish, shouldn’t be killed either. We can argue the sealers’ case all we like. Forget it. They’re zealots.

The second category includes the non-zealots, those who accept that animals may be slaughtered to satisfy human needs. But they have certain ethical concerns about how the slaughtering should be done. And they think sealing may violate those guidelines.

Those general ethical concerns that apply to the killing of animals are discussed in the 1986 Report of the Royal Commission on Seals and Sealing in Canada. They are: that killing animals shouldn’t threaten the survival of a species; that killing should be done in a humane way; that the reason for killing should be socially and economically important, not a trivial one; and that the killing shouldn’t be wasteful, i.e., it shouldn’t leave large parts of animals’ bodies unused.

The report addressed each of these. “Sealing operations pose no significant risks to any stocks,” it read. “There is little cruelty or unnecessary suffering inflicted in most sealing operations. Some people have attacked the triviality of the ultimate uses of seal products (e.g., in fashion furs), but the critical issue is the importance of the income generated for those hunting seals. This income is of considerable importance to sealers living in conditions of limited economic opportunities. In most sealing operations there is little or no waste of any usable seal product.”

The royal commission report is the most thorough examination of Canadian sealing ever carried out. Not all its recommendations favoured the sealers. For instance, the commission recommended an end to the whitecoat hunt, which was followed through on. I realize the report is more than 20 years old. Perhaps we need a new commission to look at the subject again. Until then, this is the best we have. It is a dispassionate, moderate and careful study. It should give us strength and purpose as we answer opponents of the hunt. It has arguments in it that can convince the persuadable, those in the second category above, that the seal hunt is necessary and viable. I’ve read a good deal of anti-hunt literature since 1986, to the extent that my stomach could take it, and none of the ranting and roaring has made a dent in the report’s conclusions.

The zealots first arrived on the scene in the 1970s and they’ve kept up a campaign, somewhat varying in intensity from year to year, but continuous, against the seal hunt ever since. They have many weapons: inflammatory images from the ice floes; photos of seal pups with “tears” in their eyes; TV ads; celebrities to promote the cause; dedicated, well-paid leadership; and an army of skilled letter writers who know how to cajole and abuse.

Finally, they have plenty of loot from blinkered adherents; the delicate consciences of those far removed from the hunt. Nervous nellies everywhere.

In his April 18 column, So hungry I could eat a seal, Ryan Cleary referred to “the fact the Newfoundland seal hunt is doomed.” That’s not a fact. That’s a surmise. The fact is the seal hunt survives. The zealots have been trying to get it stopped for four decades, and they’ve failed. I admit the outlook isn’t very cheerful, especially with the likelihood the EU will ban the import of seal products. But that hasn’t happened yet, and if it does, other markets may open.

We’re in an argument, folks. Other generations of Newfoundlanders have argued over responsible government, the railroad, votes by women, Confederation and other weighty subjects.

It’s our turn. Our fight is over sealing. The difference this time is that Newfoundland is under assault from outside. It has been chosen as a target by zealots — too cowardly to pick on places like Alberta or Montana where they’d be strung up if they jeopardized the beef industry — because they think, or thought, we’re weak, they can drive us under. We’re on a remote fringe of North America, with half a million people, nobody cares about us, no one will take our part. That’s what’s in the minds of hate-filled and ignorant letter writers in San Diego and Kerrville, Tex.

Let’s fight, claw, and spit back. Never surrender. William Carson had it right: “Submission never gained a point in politics.”