By John Dolan, Misty Cribb, and Jeff Cassell

Judging from ancient seal clubs and bones found along Denmark’s Kattegat Strait, it appears that humans have killed seals for food since Stone Age times, but these hunts were for survival and the numbers taken were so low that the populations were not severely affected. Western expansion and the advent of the fast sailing ship, and later the steam ship which was capable of breaking through ice packs, were soon to change all of this (Gentry 1987). The most remote seal haunts were not quite remote anymore.

At least as early as 1610, African seals were taken by the Dutch for oil and hides. A century and a half later, the Russians, the first large scale purveyors of seal skins to Imperial China, had a thriving trade in otter and fur seal pelts, especially the northern fur seal. American trade to China can be conveniently dated to 1783, since merchants of the newly independent United States of America were now free to trade to the Orient. What did China want? Fur. What did America sell them? Fur, beginning with otter pelts. Otters have a perpetually prime, luxuriant coat. This fact alone has much to do with the rise of commercial sealing. It was a byproduct of the American trade in otter fur to China that led to the first New England seal skin rush. This occurred in the mid-1780’s, particularly along the California coast and the island of South Georgia. Within two decades, this rush had decimated stocks everywhere. "Swilin", as it was called, was considered to be a dying trade (Busch 1985).

The discovery of the South Shetland Islands, far south of Cape Horn, and the large rookeries there led to a second seal rush. But, by this time, three circumstances had changed the hunt. First, not only China but Europe also desired furs. Second, an efficient method was created to rid fur seal hides of those annoying outer guard hairs (Busch 1985). Third, large scale commercial hunting had become very profitable (in less than six years, revenues from northern fur seal skins equaled $7.2 million, the purchase price of Alaska). The next eighty years brought the darkest years in seal history. These were the decades of large scale commercial hunting for seal oil (used in lamps) and seal pelts which were used for clothing. Whatever was left was used for food or fashioned into tools, decorative crafts, fertilizer and pet food. Hunting on this scale led to the near extinction of many species, including the Juan Fernandez, Galapagos and Guadalupe fur seals. In only four years, the South Shetland Islands and other large fur seal colonies were nearly exterminated. As for another species, by 1890, fewer than 100 elephant seals remained (Gentry 1987).

The seals were not alone in their suffering. Every March, the ice fields of northeastern Canada come alive with an army of harp seals, there to give birth. In the winter of 1914, over 1,500 Newfoundlanders walked to St. John’s hoping to find berths on sealing ships. Attempting to supplement his meager income, the sealer had to fit himself around the ancient biological rhythms of the harp seal. Besides the pay, there was also a regional pride that dictated a " real man" goes to the ice for seals. Not everyone could handle its rigors. It was a difficult means of income and many positions demanded a long apprenticeship. Still, most men tried because sealers were greatly respected for their daring and bravery (Radtke 1981).

The ship Southern Cross was well past her prime when her captain and 173 man crew sailed her into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. After they had loaded the ship with pelts, they headed south towards port. At the same time, the ship Newfoundland was trapped in the ice off northeastern Newfoundland. The captain, Wes Kean, ordered his crew to walk across the ice to his father’s ship, Stephano, and go sealing with that crew to supplement their meager number of pelts. It was an unusually warm day and the men dressed lightly. The sky soon darkened. Fearing the storm, half of the men returned to the Newfoundland while the other half successfully reached the Stephano. On board, the men received a cup of hot tea and were ordered back to the Newfoundland. Captain Abram Kean put the men back on the ice, thinking they had enough time to hunt and return to their ship. He hadn’t realized that he misjudged the position of his ship as well as that of the Newfoundland. The men were dropped off far away from their ship and given wrong directions for their return. No one in the group had a compass. The snow increased as darkness fell. The Newfoundland had no radio (the owners thought it didn’t pay for itself) so each ship thought the men were on the other ship. No search party was sent or foghorn sounded for two nights (Radtke 1981).

The penalty of the hunt was quite severe. As Southern Cross approached the southeastern tip of Newfoundland, it met a gale. The captain and all 173 men were swallowed by the sea. The only trace of the ship ever found was part of a life jacket that washed up on a beach in Ireland some months later. As for the men from the Newfoundland, the storm they were caught in soon became heavy with below freezing temperatures. The crew spent two bitterly cold days and nights on the ice with poor clothing, virtually no food, and no shelter. 132 men began the trek, 78 never saw their home ports again (Radtke 1981).

After two full days, the ship Bellaventure spotted the men and sent recovery parties. What their eyes beheld was a ghastly sight. Some men had frozen while praying. A father and his two sons froze with their arms around each other. The survivors lost limbs to frostbite and faced torturous pain as their limbs thawed aboard the rescue ship. The dead, in their grotesque postures, were stacked like cordwood on the deck. The Bellaventure, flags at half-mast, sailed into a solemn and silent St. John’s Harbor (Radtke 1981).

These tragedies resulted in practically nothing. At this time, Newfoundland was a "company" island where everything was owned by the merchants. Captain Abram Kean walked away free. No charges were raised and no one was blamed. The Newfoundland’s owners never even compensated the survivors or the relatives of the dead men (Radtke 1981).

Tragedies such as these were not atypical. Although dangerous, the sealers believed the harvest to be vital to the economy of their people. And they knew they were in for a terrible voyage, living and working under abominable conditions while hunting moving seals on cold, cracking ice sheets. So why did they do this? This was there only chance to earn cold hard cash (Radtke 1981).

Whether the hunt was/is justified or not, the seals have not been alone in their suffering. Through the years, scores of impoverished men, attempting to support their families, have died as ships sank in the cold waters of the northwestern Atlantic or were lost in blizzards and ice storms. They simply became part of the price paid for seal pelts. 1914 witnessed the worst of these losses. More than 1500 Newfoundland men endured the agonies of the hunt. For 252, the agonies won (Radtke 1981).

The Year of Disaster is a story of penniless workers subjugated by powerful, monied merchants who thought more of seal pelts than human lives. The sealers were not, and still are not, bloodthirsty barbarians. They were hungry men, with hungry families on shore, who hunted seals to live (Radtke 1981).

The next major occurrence involving pinniped and polar bear hunting came in 1972 when the Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed. The purpose of this act was to insure that marine mammals are maintained at or, in some cases, restored to healthy population levels. The MMPA prohibits the taking or importing of marine mammals. Taking is defined as harassing, hunting, capturing, killing, or attempting to harass, hunt, capture, or kill any marine mammal. But of course, there are exceptions. These include taking for scientific research, public display, the incidental take in the course of commercial fishing operations, and native subsistence use (Marine Mammal Protection Act Reauthorization 1999). Because of their subsistence use of marine mammals, the Act exempts Indians, Aleut, and Eskimos who dwell on the coast of the North Pacific Ocean (Digest of Federal Resource Laws). In fact, the MMPA authorizes Alaskan natives to harvest and use stellar sea lions even if the species is listed as depleted as long as it is for subsistence purposes and is done in a non-wasteful manner (National Marine Fisheries Service 1992).

With all of these exceptions, there were numerous ways to get around the Act. Therefore, many amendments were made to monitor and control legal takes of marine mammals. The MMPA, only applying to the U.S., could never regulate the hunting in foreign countries. Thus, the hunting of marine mammals continued in nations such as Canada, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Norway, and Greenland (Marine Mammal Protection Act Reauthorization 1999).

Stellar sea lions were commercially harvested in the eastern Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska until 1972. The largest harvests were of pups only and were conducted between 1963 and 1972 at Sugarloaf, Marmot, Ugamak, and Akutan Islands. The pup harvests could sometimes reach 50% of a rookery’s total pup production. In the 1980’s, after commercial harvesting of stellar sea lions had been outlawed, subsistence harvesting was still permitted and was documented in Prince William Sound, lower Cook Inlet, Kodiak Island, Alaska Peninsula, Pribilof Island, and to some extent in the Aleutians Islands. Yearly estimates of reported harvest were available for some communities. And from these estimates, the highest reported harvest was 35-40 individuals over a two-year span (National Marine Fisheries Service 1992).

In 1983, the annual spring seal hunt in Canada was abandoned after environmentalists persuaded the European Community to ban the importation of white coat pelts. Four years later, the Canadian government announced that it would allow the resumption of the hunts from ships north of Newfoundland. Canada authorized the hunt to help the struggling economy of Newfoundland where unemployment was a staggering 18%. But, they limited the prey to adult seals and required that they be shot instead of clubbed (Anonymous 1987).

In March of 1987, a couple from Canada was arrested in Washington state for smuggling a polar bear skull and skin into the U.S. At the time, polar bears were endangered but it was not illegal to kill them in Canada. The couple were operators of a guide service in Ontario that took Americans on polar bear hunts. On a hunt, a man form Texas killed a polar bear and paid the couple $1,000 to smuggle the skull and skin across the border. Charges filed against the couple carried aggregate penalties of up to 20 years in prison and $41,000 in fines. The couple’s lawyer said that the hunts provided economic benefits to native tribes in Canada (Shabecoff 1987).

From 1980-1989, approximately 60,000 harp seals were taken each year from Greenland, Canada, and Norway. Some people claim this depleted the population when in actuality this number is much reduced from the 350,000 that were taken in 1963. Increasing costs and a growing repugnance toward wearing furs have helped lower the numbers (Gentry 1987).

In the mid to late-1980's, the northern Atlantic stock had been so overharvested that the stock was on the verge of a major collapse. Scientists recommended that the Total Allowable Catches be dramatically reduced (IMMA 1993). A reduction of this size was thought to be extreme by the Canadian Government. The Government had to find a scapegoat that would take the fishing industry out of the heat and still allow for a profit making means. The most logical pick for them was to lower the numbers of harp seal. This would allow the fishing industry to go about their business and provide a new income industry for the Canadian workers. The theory behind this was that a reduction in harp seal numbers would allow the cod stocks to rebound. The problem with this is that the harp seals diet consists of only 1% of Atlantic cod. Also, seals are migratory animals spending less that 50% of the year in areas where they might come in contact with Canadian commercial fisheries. Most often during this time the harp seals are not feeding because they are giving birth and molting. The opposing theory to this was from the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). They published a study that in general showed that seals play no discernible role in the population dynamics of recovering cod stocks (Bowen 1995). When the DFO statement was released it was followed soon after by a vast cut in funds to the DFO researchers. The scientists were, in effect muzzled and threatened with termination if they came public again with these statements. In fact, scientific documents concerning this issue were published as anonymous (IMMA 1993).

Environmental threats to the harp seals can be placed under two vast categories: direct human contact (incidental taking, entanglement, disturbance by boats) and habitat destruction (dumping, dredging, fishery development, chemical contaminants). Each of these dangers have a large effect on the numbers of the northern seal pups. The one that seems to concern most scientists today is the chemical contaminants found in the animals. These contaminants routinely enter the environment as a result of indiscriminant use, accidental spills and inadequate disposal techniques (Wallace and Lavigne 1992). This is becoming a growing concern because of how much of these seals meat is consumed by humans each year. Many of the contaminants found in the seals tissues, including some that exceeded existing health standings, are known neurotoxins, carcinogens and mutagens. Studies have showed that native eskimos that eat large amounts of hooded and harp seals have more that 3 times the safe amounts of PCB's. This study is becoming more important everyday because now not only are the seals being affected but humans also (Wallace and Lavigne 1992).

Anonymous. Go Ahead, but Drop the Clubs. Time. April 6, 1987. 129:55.

Bowen WD. 1985. Harp Seals and Their Population Dynamics. Canadian Society of Environmental Biologists National Conference, St. John’s Newfoundland.

Busch BC. 1985. The War Against the Seals. Quebec, Canada; McGill-Queen’s University Press. 374pp.

Digest of Federal Resource Laws of Interest to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Online Posting. http://www.fws.gov/laws/digest/reslaws/marmam.html. Accessed Nov. 12, 1999. 3p.

Gentry RL. Seals and Their Kin. National Geographic. April 1987. 171:474-502.

IMMA 1993. Cod Crisis: Are Seals Part of the Problem? International Marine Mammal Association Inc. Technical Briefing 93/01. 13pp.

Marine Mammal Protection Act Reauthorization. The Informer 1999. Online Posting. http://www.legislative.noaa.gov/mammal.html. Accessed Nov. 12, 1999. 3pp.

National Marine Fisheries Service. 1992. Recovery Plan for the Steller Sea Lion (Eumetopias jubatus). Prepared by the Steller Sea Lion Recovery Team for the National Marine Fisheries Service, Silver Spring, Maryland. 92pp.

Radtke RL. The Penalty of the Hunt. Sea Frontiers. March-April 1981. 27:89-95.

Shabecoff P. Polar Bear Smuggling Alleged. New York Times. March 12, 1987. 136:A22.

Wallace SD, Lavigne DM. 1992. A review of chemical contaminants in harp (Phoca groenlandica) and hooded (Cystophora cristata) seals of the Northwest Atlantic. Int. Mar. Mamm. Assoc. Tech. Rep. No. 92-03. 23pp.

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