EU ban on seal products sparks heated reactions - 14,000 replies to public hearing | Polarjournal
Polar Journal

Follow us

Icon PodcastIcon LinkedinIcon facebookIcon InstagramIcon X

News > Animals

EU ban on seal products sparks heated reactions – 14,000 replies to public hearing

Ole Ellekrog 21. August 2024 | Animals, animals, Arctic, Politics
The harbor seal is one of the seals benefitting from the EU ban on seal products. The Greenland Institute of Natural resources estimated there to be around 640,000 individuals worldwide in 2009. It lives mostly in subarctic waters and is not abundant in Greenland. Photo: Charles J. Sharp, Wikimedia Commons
The harbor seal is one of the seals benefitting from the EU ban on seal products. The Greenland Institute of Natural Resources estimated there to be around 640,000 individuals worldwide in 2009. It lives mostly in subarctic waters and is not abundant in Greenland. Photo: Charles J. Sharp, Wikimedia Commons

Artists and hunters in Arctic Canada hope the EU will lift the ban that has been in place since 2009. The ban was implemented because of animal welfare concerns, and continues to split the EU on a north-south axis.

They are cute and fluffy, their flippers wave in the most innocent way, and their eyes can melt even the most hardened of hearts. There is no doubt that seals have won the sympathy of most Westerners and that it seems monstrous to kill them for their skin.

At the same time, seal hunting has been an integral part of Inuit societies for thousands of years, and remote Arctic societies still depend on seals for their subsistence. In Greenland, for instance, the practice is so important that a seal hunting competition is part of national day celebrations in most towns.

In the Arctic, seal meat is a staple food, and sealskin clothing helps many people keep warm through winter; a realization that often shocks first time visitors to the region. And for good reason. The debate highlights a central paradox of the modern world: the universal values that continue to expand through globalization and the ancient cultures that these values clash with.

This debate broke out once again recently when the EU opened up a public hearing on its ban on seal products. The ban has been in place since 2009, but now, for the first time since, it is up for a review. Thus, it will undergo a public hearing, a call for evidence, and a consultation with relevant stakeholders.

The public hearing, which was open from May 15th until August 7th, sparked heated reactions from Europeans, most in favor of the seals.

“It’s 2024, and it’s inconceivable that we still have to defend animals against the cruelty of seal products. We have many animal-friendly alternatives at our disposal. Let’s respect animals and take animal suffering into account,” wrote Celia Brunet, a concerned Frenchwoman.

Harp Seals are more abundant worldwide with 7-8 million individuals estimated to exist. According to the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, around 135,000 of them are hunted annually in Greenland and Canada and the population is stable. Photo: Michael Poltermann-NIOZ

Against cruel murders or for age-old tradition

The outcome of the public hearing will be a report that will be published next year. Based on this, the European Commission will decide whether the law will be changed.

Should the report be based on the sentiment among the majority of commenters, there is no doubt that the ban will be upheld. Like Celia Brunet above, most commenters, especially the latest ones, express their outrage with varying degrees of sophistication.

“We do not need seal products. There is not one good reason to authorize the import of seal products. The fur industry is in decline, the meat is not in great demand, and we have already replaced other products with more civilized means of obtaining them,” wrote Ziga Klajnsek of Slovenia, while Lea Roche of France simply wrote: “Completely against these cruel murders.”

Some commenters were more open to more opportunities for sealskin sales in the EU, however, citing their negative effect on fish stocks and age-old traditions.

“We already see that the amount of fish in the Bothnian Sea is decreasing while the seal population is increasing. If it becomes easier to sell meat and other products from seals, more people will hunt them. If only private sales are allowed, there is no risk of companies getting involved and destroying quotas,” wrote Geert van Loo from Sweden, while T. Seppo of Finland wrote:

“I am a 6th generation professional fisherman, I have been hunting seals for about 30 years. My company provides seal hunting services. Seals should also be exploited with seal products, it is absurd to waste valuable prey when seal products are not allowed to be traded.”

In general, through a non-exhaustive review of the thousands of comments, a clear trend was noticeable: the commenters who were against the ban were from northern EU countries while commenters who were for a ban came from the south. Curiously, more than 11,000 of the 14,000 commenters came from France.

Read more comments here.

The ban on seal products in the EU includes their skin but also their meat, such as this steak. Photo: Canadian Seal Product Website.

Canada wants the ban lifted

In other northern latitudes, people are also hoping for the ban to be lifted. In Canada, sealskin trade is still a large business which is mostly conducted by Inuit in the regions of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.

And while the original 2009 ban did make an exemption for seal products that were hunted as part of traditional practices, the extra bureaucracy the ban added, still led to a sharp decrease in sales in the EU. At least according to several artists and hunters the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) spoke to in June.

“It would just make it so much easier if there was a more straightforward way to go about selling our products,” the fashion designer Taalrumiq, who now refused all sales to the EU because of the bureaucracy, told CBC.

While it was going on, the Government of Nunavut was urging citizens to participate in the EU hearing and was even advising them on how to do so. Already, the Government of Nunavut is providing financial compensation to seal hunters; a policy it implemented to support the “traditional economy” of the region. 

A popular seal product in the Arctic are the sealskin mittens that keep hands warm on the coldest days. These are from the Great Greenland website, and since they were caught by Inuit, they are already allowed in the EU. Photo: Screenshot from Great Greenland website.
A popular seal product in the Arctic are the sealskin mittens that keep hands warm on the coldest days. These are from the Great Greenland website, and since they were caught by Inuit, they are already allowed in the EU. Photo: Screenshot from Great Greenland website.

The ban hurt Finns and Norwegians

And the Canadian hunters are not the only ones to be negatively impacted by the EU ban. In 2017, the last seal hunter sailed out from northern Norway after the EU ban had made the industry almost fully reliant on government subsidies.

Later that year, seal hunters in Finland were complaining that the skin they sold had to be imported from Greenland since the seals that were nearby and not endangered could no longer be hunted for profits.

In Greenland, seal hunting is still very much alive. The practice there is protected by the exemption for Inuit, and the company Great Greenland from Qaqortoq in South Greenland now ships skins, mittens, and boots to buyers across the world.

In the 1970s, Greenland was under international pressure to stop its seal hunting practices. Posing with a baby seal, the actress Brigitte Bardot campaigned against it, but, in the end, through help from the Danish queen, the seal hunt also survived back then. More recently, the Inuit lawyer, activist, and sealskin clothes designer Aaju Peter has advocated for the importance of seal hunting to Inuit societies:

“It is very easy to pass legislation like this because it doesn’t really affect them. It only affects a small group up in the north,” Aaju Peter said about the 2009 ban.

“The animal rights protester, a 14-year-old boy, told me: ‘well you could just move to the Netherlands and leave your seals alone.’ ‘Well, with the ice melting,’ I told him, ‘I don’t think I want to do that,’” she said, jokingly.

On the other side of the debate, during the public consultation, the animal’s rights group Euro Group for Animals put together a list of six reasons why the ban should remain in place. These included the fact that the EU should protect animal welfare, that the seals’ impact on fisheries can be prevented without killing them, and that the current ban already allows for flexibility.

Whatever the outcome of the review, one thing seems certain: it will evoke strong emotions on both side of the decision.

Ole Ellekrog, Polar Journal AG

More on the topic:

linkedinfacebookx
Compass rose polar journal

Join the Polar Community!

Discover our polar newsletter featuring more articles from every polar aspect as well as events and polar opportunities and Arctic and Antarctic ice charts.