Paul Watson.
Commentary by Captain Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
No one has ever opposed the Inuit hunting of seals. There has never been a protest against the Inuit for killing seals. The European Union was even ready to give an exception to the Inuit until the Inuit decided to ally themselves with the barbaric commercial sealing industry of Newfoundland and the Magdalen Islands.
The Inuit kill an average of 10,000 seals a year. The commercial quota for non-native people is 450,000 a year. The Inuit utilize the entire seal. The white commercial sealer strips off the pelt and leaves the body on the ice.
The Inuit wear sealskins and eat seal meat. The white commercial sealer does not wear sealskin nor do they eat the meat.
The Inuit hunt fully grown adult seals. The white commercial sealer bashes baby seal on the ice where they are born. The Inuit sealer is an actual hunter. The white commercial sealer is a baby killer.
But for some strange reason the Inuit have chosen to ally themselves with the men who club seals and who have been documented skinning some alive.
Maybe this is in return for subsidies or favors from the Canadian government but the reality is that these are two completely separate issues. The opposition to Inuit sealing is non-existent. All of the opposition is directed at white people in Eastern Canada who club seals for pelts for sale overseas.
The Canadian government and the Canadian sealing industry are angry that the European Parliament has banned seal products. This has cut the kill by 75%.
It has not affected the Inuit. No one is telling them they can’t wear sealskin clothing or eat seal meat.
The Europeans in their wisdom have decided that seal meat is unethical for Europeans. It is a European decision and Canada is trying to force their barbaric industry down the throats of Europeans who want nothing to do with the largest inhumane slaughter of marine mammals on the planet.
It’s hard to garner sympathy for a bunch of white thug baby seal bashers, so Canada has recruited the Inuit to appeal to white guilt in Europe and North America.
In America, seal products are banned, although the Inuit and the Yupik have an exemption.
Ellen DeGeneres has every right to condemn the brutality of this obscenity the Canadians call a seal hunt.
This Inuit fashion show has absolutely no connection with the reality of the commercial seal hunt that is conducted by white men and hugely subsidized by the Canadian tax-payer.
As a Canadian raised in the Canadian Maritime provinces I have witnessed first hand the brutality of this despicable enterprise and as a Canadian I feel that it is unethical for the Canadian government to exploit native culture in their defense of a commercial enterprise.
There is nothing natural about targeting close to half a million wild seals every year. Four hundred years ago there were some 45 million seals (harps, hoods, greys, ring and walrus) on the Eastern coast of Canada and New England. And there was no shortage of fish. Today the total seal population had been reduced to 10% of their original numbers and fish populations have been drastically reduced. Canadian incompetent mis-management of the fisheries is surpassed only by their history of exploitation of indigenous cultures and this exploitation continues today with Canada hiding behind the seal fur skirts of Inuit women in their on-going attempts to greenwash the slaughter of the seals.
I’m not falling for the charade and I’m sure Ellen DeGeneres is not impressed with this embarrassing propaganda that exploits native women to defend the butchery done by white men.
Longtime animal activist Capt. Paul Watson, head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, is well known for his campaign to protect the whales, of late documented on the Animal Planet reality show Whale Wars.
