Canada's Marine Mammal Regulations specify that the commercial harp seal hunt may occur between November 15 and May 15. However, the main hunt usually begins in early March, and continues through May, or until the quota has been reached.
    The Greenland hunt (which is essentially unregulated) occurs mainly between June and September, when the harp seals have migrated to the waters between Greenland and the Canadian eastern arctic.
    Taking into account both the Canadian and Greenland hunts, the Northwest Atlantic harp seals can be hunted at virtually all times of the year. No other hunt for a North American large mammal population is managed in this way.

How are seals killed during the hunt?
    Younger seals (ragged jackets: seals shedding their whitecoats once they’re able to swim, and beaters, seals who are prepared to “beat” their way north) are usually killed on the ice with clubs or hakapiks (a device resembling a heavy ice-pick) and clubs. Later in the season, beaters and older seals are usually shot with a rifle, both on the ice and in the water. It is also legal to use a shotgun firing slugs. It is illegal to deliberately capture seals using nets, although seals are often caught incidentally in nets set for other fisheries.
    Changing ice conditions have meant that a much higher percentage of the seals are being shot rather than clubbed. While some may think that this could be more humane, it is not. Sealers shoot at seals from moving boats. The seals are on moving pans of ice, and the seals themselves are trying to escape. Under the best of conditions, it would be difficult to kill a seal with one shot; under the conditions of the seal hunt, it is almost impossible. As a result, many seals are left to writhe in agony for several minutes before finally being killed. In IFAW’s 2000 seal hunt investigation, the group documented a seal being shot repeatedly in open water for eight minutes, as it struggled desperately to escape. [TOP]

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What is the total number of seals killed?
    The Canadian government issues "landed catch" statistics that are widely reported in the media and often misinterpreted as the total number of seals killed.
    These reports, however, only count the number of seals who are "landed" at seal processing facilities. They do not include seals who are killed during Greenland's hunt of the same population, nor do they account for seals who are wounded but escape ("struck and lost"), or animals who are killed incidentally in fishing nets.
    A recent study, "Estimating Total Kill of Northwest Atlantic Harp Seals, 1994-1998," in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Marine Mammal Science concluded that in 1998 the actual number of harp seals killed was somewhere between 406,258 and 548,903. This means more animals are being killed than would be considered prudent under a truly precautionary approach to harp seal management. [TOP]

How old are the seals when they are killed?
A harp seal can be legally killed as soon as it has begun to molt its white hair, around two weeks after birth. Adult seals are also killed. The seal hunt is one of the very few hunts that occurs in the spring when young are being born. Most other large mammals are hunted in the fall, and are protected from hunting in the spring. [TOP]

What percentage of seals killed are pups?
    Usually around 80% of the seals killed in the commercial hunt are “young of the year” — between approximately 12 days and one year old (source: DFO, Proceeding of the National Marine Mammal Review Committee, Feb. 1999). [TOP]

Is it illegal to kill whitecoat seals?
    The Marine Mammal Regulations make it illegal for non-natives to barter, sell, or trade whitecoat seal products. The prohibition on selling these seals was intended to remove any reason for hunting them. A recent ruling by the Newfoundland Court of Appeal found this section of the Marine Mammal Regulations to be unconstitutional and, as a result, it cannot be enforced in Newfoundland. [TOP]

Since harp seals are not endangered, why not hunt them and encourage the markets for their parts?
    The history of wildlife conservation has shown that the commercial trade in dead wildlife, or its parts and derivatives, is virtually impossible to regulate and is rarely sustainable. Certain biological characteristics make seals particularly susceptible to the effects of commercial exploitation. For example, harp seals are relatively long-lived mammals, who reproduce in large groups and bear only one offspring each year. In addition, the management of Northwest Atlantic harp seals is complicated by the fact that the population migrates between Canada and Greenland, and is commercially hunted in both countries.
    But biology and management aside, there are other reasons why the commercial exploitation of seals needs to be carefully monitored:
    The fact that dead animals have a price placed on their heads creates incentive for illegal trade and misreporting of the catch. A legal trade in seal penises for the aphrodisiac market, for example, may provide an incentive for poaching. It also results in "high-grading," where animals are killed for selected valuable parts such as the penis, and the rest of the animal is discarded without being recorded in the landed catch statistics.
    Finally, history also shows us that once legal (and illegal) markets are established for wildlife parts, they cannot be easily legislated away. It is for all of these reasons that encouraging a trade in harp seal parts could result in unsustainable harvesting practices, and threaten the seal population. [TOP]

What is the economic impact of the seal hunt?
One commonly used reason for supporting the hunt is that it supposedly provides jobs for people in Newfoundland. However in reality, the hunt accounts for less than one half of one percent of Newfoundland’s Gross Domestic Product. Economists note that factors such as government-funded icebreaking services and lost revenue from tourism should be included in economic reports of the industry, and could mean the commercial seal hunt represents a net loss to the economy of Atlantic Canada.
    Many people are surprised to learn that the entire fishery in Newfoundland accounts for only 1.6% of their economy. Certainly, the fishery, including the seal hunt, once played a vital role in the economic survival of the province.
     However, this is no longer the situation. Newfoundland’s economy has diversified to include many other, far more lucrative, industry sectors such as tourism, services, construction, public administration, manufacturing, and many more.
    The sealing industry operates for a few weeks a year and provides a relatively small number of part-time jobs during that period. The seal hunt is not of vital importance to Newfoundland’s economy and does not represent meaningful job creation by the government. If Newfoundland is going to continue to develop in the changing Canadian economy, it is imperative that the federal government makes a solid commitment to the development of real, sustainable jobs — not pointless slaughter. [TOP]

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