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decline can more likely be attributed to the decades-long
anti-sealing battle staged by animal rights groups.

 
    The
Anti-Sealing Backlash

 
    As
early as the 1950s, animal rights groups surveyed
Newfoundland seal fisheries and expressed concerns over the moral turpitude of
the killing methods. But it wasn’t until the mid-60s, when the
northwest-Atlantic seal population declined by 50 percent, that activists
launched into a full-fledged attack campaign.
    Broadcast by the CBC in March of 1964, Les Phoques de la Banquise , or “The Great Seals of the Ice,”
chronicled the exploits of Canadian seal hunters; a scene showing a sealer
skinning an animal alive and leaving it to wriggle on the ice sparked
international outrage (the hunter later admitted he was paid by producers to
commit the act, but the incident nevertheless catalyzed the anti-sealing
movement). On the sole platform of “ending the commercial exploitation of
seals,” The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) established itself in
1969. The organization even hired Coca-Cola’s advertising firm to launch a
“Stop the Seal Hunt Campaign,” which was wildly successful in boosting
donations.
    Protesters’ efforts paid off. With the signing of 1972’s Marine
Mammal Protection Act, all seal products were banned in the United States
(though it was a small market to begin with). In 1983, the European Union,
responsible for importing 75% of Canadian seal pelts, implemented a permanent
ban on “ whitecoat ” baby seal products. To add more
misery for Canadian sealers, Safeway stores across Britain discontinued all
Canadian fish products in protest. The ban tore apart the sealing community.
    A major issue was the killing of “ whitecoat ”
seals. From birth to two weeks old, harp seals have fluffy, white fur (this
turns gray, brown, or spotted after two weeks). Traditionally, the majority of
seals killed by hunters were baby whitecoats . Animal
rights groups saw this practice as unsustainable and inhumane, and launched a
campaign that would appeal to the masses: incredibly cute, big-eyed baby seals
were juxtaposed with blood, guts, and murder. The Canadian government responded
to the uproar by banning the hunting of whitecoats in
1987.
    In recent years, continued efforts by the IFAW, PETA, and The
Humane Society have resulted in much more serious implications for sealers.
Mexico banned all seal product imports in 2006; the European Union, which had
previously banned only whitecoat imports, outlawed
every seal import, regardless of age — a move that struck a permanent
blow to the seal market. The Russian Federation, Taiwan, and others have since
followed suit.
    While the industry is nearly dead today, it still receives a
tremendous amount of attention and coverage; PETA recently launched a celebrity
seal campaign featuring the likes of Pamela Anderson and Perez Hilton, and
lists the cause as its “top priority.”

 
    Inuits and Cultural Exemption

 
    It
is important to distinguish that most of the backlash against sealers is aimed
at the commercialization of the trade; Inuits —
the natives of Newfoundland who have subsisted on seals for hundreds of years
— are nearly exempt from regulation. Though they only represent 3% of the
seal trade, they have a separate hunt each year which is much less controlled.
    For Inuit hunters, sealing isn’t just a source of income —
it’s a way of life, and a keystone of their culture: the seal is their
mainstay. Inuktitut vocabulary includes specific terms for “seal bone” and
“seal fat,” and legends are perpetuated within the culture of kinships and
relationships with seals. In the 1991 study, “Animal Rights, Human Rights,”
anthropologist George Wenzel spent two decades with Inuit sealers, and writes
of "the impact of the animal rights movement upon the culture and economy
of the Canadian Inuit." In his text, he argues that animal rights groups,
while “well-meaning people,” were full of