Fur Institute hopeful about seal industry’s future
By Olivia Bradbury, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The executive director of the Fur Institute of Canada says he is hopeful this will be a good year for the industry.
“We are certainly optimistic for the results of what’s to come this year in the seal harvest,” said Doug Chiasson. “There is a lot of optimism, and now the optimism is being validated in the broader fur sector.”
Recent fur auctions saw record-breaking prices, he noted.
“We’re hopeful that these overall trends in the broader fur space will carry through to the seal harvest this year, as well,” he said.
The EU has been reviewing its ban on seal products, with many organizations, including provincial and territorial governments, advocating for it to be dropped. Chiasson said some European countries have been hurt by the ban, as well.
“They are aligned with us in saying that the ban on seal products in Europe is arbitrary and serves no real purpose other than to disadvantage communities that rely on sealing,” he said.
The Fur Institute serves as the national voice for Canada’s fur trade.
“We represent from trapline to runway, from farmgate to showroom – trappers and sealers and fur farmers, all the way through to manufacturers, retailers, designers and artisans who are working with fur here in Canada, said Chiasson.
The Institute also operates the Seals & Sealing Network, which educates consumers about Canadian seal products. Unlike the institute, whose advocacy is limited to fur products, the network represents a variety of seal products such as fur, oils, leather, and meat.
The Fur Institute represents between 15 and 20 stakeholders, including provincial and territorial governments. The majority of the stakeholders are based in Newfoundland and Labrador including Carino Processing in South Dildo, Always in Vogue and NaturaL Boutique in St. John’s.
Chiasson said there has been a boom in the market for seal-based pet products. Seal oil is a source of Omega-3 fatty acids, which can not only benefit people, but dogs, as well.
“Not only do Omega-3s help a dog have a nice, lustrous coat, but also there are some benefits towards joint health and heart health and things like that,” said Chiasson.
Seal oil can benefit cats too, he said.
Chiasson admitted there is still a lingering impact on the industry due to the anti-sealing movement.
“In many ways, the playbook of the contemporary animal rights movement or anti-animal use movement was built on the floes of ice off Newfoundland in the 1970s,” he said.
“No one has put more time, effort, and investment into making sure that seal hunting is humane and seal hunting is ethical than seal hunters and the governments who represent them,” he added. “It’s not the anti-sealing groups that were putting money into evaluating the veterinary science of killing seals. It was harvesters and it was the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Government of Canada that put the effort into those things. The anti-sealing groups are happy to point out, ‘Here’s something that’s going wrong’ in their eyes, but very rarely have they ever contributed to efforts to make things better.”
Chiasson said the industry does not hunt whitecoats — baby seals — anymore. And seals are not endangered. Gray seals number in the hundreds of thousands, while harp seals number in the millions.
Chiasson said there may have been legitimate conservation concerns in the 1950s when Canada was not the only country hunting seals, but this is not the case anymore.
“We have a very stringent, science-based management framework delivered by DFO when it comes to harvesting seals,” he said.
The Canadian seal industry took a hit in 2009 with the European Union’s ban on the trade of seal products. This was followed by bans in Russia in 2011 and in Taiwan in 2013. Since then, Chiasson said, the industry has had some good years and some bad years.
He is hopeful the EU seal trade ban will, at the very least, soon be relaxed in some way.
“But in a perfect world we would have the ban completely lifted,” he said.