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This is a Group for Members who also hunt seals. Remember That all Non-waterfowl Pics Stay in there respective Groups!! NOT ON THE PHOTOS PAGE!!
Members: 40
Latest Activity: Apr 30, 2018
Seal Usage and Its importance to Rural/Maritime Life and Conservation!
Today there are about 6,000 Atlantic Canadians active in the seal hunt. Their culture has been shaped by the inhospitable and sometimes dangerous environment in which they live and work. Sealers and their families have survived for centuries through a social system that is formed around the procuring of seasonally available food; sources from communal kitchen gardens, the harvest of wild berries, the hunting of wild game including sea birds, as well as fresh fish and sea food. From this necessity grew a culture of economic adaptation, hard work and mutual respect.
Today, all sealers are licensed and hunt from their own small fishing boats, as large vessels are prohibited for sealing. Almost all sealers are seasonal fishermen who rely on sealing to help compensate for declining stocks of commercial fish such as cod.
In 1992, over 40,000 people lost their jobs when the collapse of cod stocks off the east coast of Newfoundland forced the Canadian government to close the fishery.
In 2006, the landed value of the harp seal hunt exceeded C$30 million. To people living in isolated villages with a limited range of employment options, a few thousand dollars is significant. Considered in context, sealing can make an enormous impact on a family’s well-being: In Canada, the top homeports for sealers have unemployment rates that are in excess of 30% higher than the national average. For some sealers, the income they gain from sealing represents 25-35% of their total annual income.
To these people, seals provide a livelihood, but they also provide meat for the table. In Newfoundland, it is estimated that the edible portion of one harp seal is worth an equivalent of $150 of store-bought meat (Dakins, 2007, Loring, 1993).
The primary objective of sealers is to earn income through sales or “in kind” through direct usage of the products available from the seals they kill.
Seals provide four products: fur, leather, fat (rendered for Omega3 medicinal oil) and meat. The bulk of the meat is located in the “flippers”, which the sealers take leaving the mostly meatless carcasses on the ice to return to the eco-system, as the ice melts the carcasses slip back into the ocean and provide food for other species. What at first glance appears to be wastage is in fact a “green” solution to problem of offal disposal faced by abattoirs worldwide.
Rural, maritime peoples are dependent on their environment for their livelihood. They utilize resources such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, seals and other wildlife for exactly the same reason urbanites hold jobs in factories and offices – to provide income to feed and cloth their families.
Sustainable use of a natural, renewable resource is the internationally accepted principle of man’s use of animals for food, clothing and income in a manner that ensures the continued existence of healthy, stable (or growing) population levels of the species being utilized.
The concept is rooted in scientific management principles to determine appropriate usage levels given the biology, natural mortality and environment of the species. These factors are used to set conservationally sound, conservative quotas, which are monitored and modified on an on-going basis.
The Harp seal population of the northwestern Atlantic is a prime example of the sustainable use principle, as the population has tripled under this management regime to the present level. The principle of the sustainable use of a natural, renewable resource meets this requirement ecologically, conservationally and morally. The Canadian seal hunt is one of the world’s best examples of a “green” approach to the use of a natural, renewable resource: seals.
(Excerpts posted with permission from, http://www.thesealfishery.com
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Discussion Forum
Seal Products
Started by La The Phong Dec 6, 2016. 0 Replies 0 Likes
Hi all seal hunters in NL,I am in search of seal products to export to a country in Asia (not China). It would be nice if I could get in touch of a group of hunters that can provide a steady source…Continue
Are there any Seals in Trinity Bay or Conception Bay yet?
Started by Jeff Wish Apr 30, 2013. 0 Replies 0 Likes
Are the young seals in yet. Anybody been out. I was out last week and never saw much of anything in Conception Bay. I'm working and wondering how people are making out..Continue
personal sealing course
Started by John T. Last reply by Jeff Wish Mar 25, 2013. 1 Reply 0 Likes
i done the course a few years back do i have to do it again or can i just go pick up a liscence can someone let me know thanksContinue
seal license
Started by kenneth Griffiths. Last reply by kenneth Griffiths Mar 26, 2012. 4 Replies 0 Likes
Where does one go about getting a sea lic in Newfoundland?Continue
Comment Wall
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Comment by Ben Andrews on April 3, 2011 at 12:37pm
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Has anybody heard the opening date I heard rumors but nothing for sure. I heard the seals off Twilingate trying to gewt over as soon as she opens
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Comment by Kurtis Boone on March 29, 2011 at 11:57pm
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yeah sorry about that your right i got mixed up were they called me from dfo bay roberts lol you going
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Comment by Scott Hudson on March 29, 2011 at 11:20pm
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kurtis called dfo it is in whitboure on monday night.
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seal hunting seminar going on in bay roberts monday night april 4 call dept of fisheries & oceans to be put on the list 1-709-786-3960
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Comment by Peter Emberley on February 25, 2011 at 9:13pm
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Northeast Coast Sealers Cooperative of Newfoundland sees potential markets in Asian countries for the meat of grey seals, like it will be buying from a hunt on Hay Island off Cape Breton.
The sealers co-operative has already done work on developing grey seal meat products and introducing them to potential customers, including those already buying harp seal products, says executive director Shannon Lewis.
“We are doing a lot of development work in product development with meat and we feel the grey seal has a very large potential opportunity in those products,” he said.
“We are going to do an analysis to test the grey seal meat and see how our clients respond to it. We did some testing on it last year with the market and the market came back very positive toward the product specific to the grey seal meat, and I guess this is the next step.”
A group of sealers, as well as the anti-seal hunt activists who oppose the grey seal harvest, were planning to set out for Hay Island off eastern Cape Breton today, weather permitting, where a quota of 1,900 has been set.
Lewis was reluctant to provide details about the co-operative’s customers other than to say they are Asian countries. It is also looking at increasing sales in domestic markets, he said.
The co-operative was already working with potential customers in China before last month’s announcement of a trade deal that will allow that country to import Canadian seal meat, he said.
“We were hindered by the inability to get into the marketplace,” he said. “Now that the government has finalized the arrangement, we are very excited about that opportunity.
“We have our clients ready to take product, very eager to take large quantities of product and again, they are looking at utilizing the whole animal, which is key to the industry.”
He hoped to be selling seal meat in China this year.
Lewis said he could talk for hours about research that is underway into other potential uses of sel products, including heart valves and extracts.
Northeast Coast Sealers Cooperative, which has some 620 members from throughout Atlantic Canada, has been in business for since 1983 marketing both seal pelts and meat.
The co-operative has been buying from Cape Breton sealers for a number of years.
The North of Smokey Fishermen’s Association has said it is hoping to develop a seal processing industry for both harp and grey seals in Cape Breton.
Lewis said it would be premature of him to make any comments about a Cape Breton facility.
Courtsey of The Telegram
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Comment by David on November 30, 2010 at 7:07pm
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There is no dubt that poaching and over fishing didnt help the cod fish and salmon, but there should be somthing done when there are salmon coming into the estuaries chasing salmon and trout... I know its nature and all that but it dont seem right when they have a school of salmon surrounded in a little pool just picking them of 1 by 1.
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Comment by Edward Smith on November 30, 2010 at 5:39pm
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Sad isn't it! Can't imagine whats going to happen to the fisheries of the North Atlantic if something is not done! The current population estimate places over 9 million! what effect is this having on our salmon recruitment? we are producing more smolt than ever in history, they are just not coming back to the rivers. Maybe these seals have something to do with it, You think?
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That would turn your stomach watching that, just imagine how many Cod, Salmon and sea trout those things kill in the run of a year !!! I have personally witnessed them chasing schools of salmon right up the river by my cabin to so its not only cod fish that they do this with !!
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This video was created for a German News show Dschungel, in 1999. it outlines the damage the seals are having on Cod fish populations. It is in German, but there are English subtitles. If you do not understand German, you might want to mute the video and just read the subtitles. Very interesting video!
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Here is a photo I found on the net. And, They say Seals DON"T EAT COD!!! What a Joke!!
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