TL: The sealskin import ban - fragile victory? (GP)
SO: Greenpeace International
DT: 1988
Keywords: oceans marine mammals hunting greenpeace groups gp ec
europe bans seals canada /

During September and October of 1988, a written Declaration
concerning harp and hooded seals will be before the European
Parliament. It calls for the renewal, for an indefinite period of
time, of the current ban on the importation of the skins of white
coated harp seals and blue backed hooded seals, except those
produced by the Inuit people. Similarly, before the end of this
year, the Commission will make a recommendation to the Council of
Ministers for an indefinite extension.

When this ban first came into effect in October of 1983, it had an
immediate and profound impact on commercial sealing around the
world. Worldwide demand for seal skins declined by about 75% during
the early 1980's. However, this was a short-lived result, and
sealing is on the rise in many areas. The Canadian hunt this spring
was the largest since 1983, and Norwegian catches are also
increasing. It is imperative that the ban be extended for an
indefinite period of time. Such protection is vital to ensure the
future of the seal herds.

Biology

Harp seals

Harp seals (Phoca groenlandica) are associated with the pack ice of
the North Atlantic Ocean. During the autumn, they move south with
the advancing ice, and by late winter have reached their whelping
grounds . They haul out on the ice and give birth in several
distinct areas: in the White Sea in the Soviet Union (the East
Ice); around the island of Jan Mayen to the east of Greenland (the
West Ice); and in the Northwest Atlantic off Newfoundland and
Labrador (the Front) and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence (the Gulf).
After a brief nursing period, the seals mate, feed briefly, and
then begin their annual moult. By early summer, they have returned
to their summer feeding grounds. The Northwest Atlantic population
scatters throughout the eastern Canadian Arctic, while the other
two populations summer in the area from the Kara and Barents Sea to
eastern Greenland.

The pups are born with a distinct yellowish tinge that fades
quickly to a pure white. During a nursing period which lasts less
than two weeks, they grow from approximately 10 kg at birth to over
30 kg (some attain a weight of over 45 kg). At the time of weaning,
they take on a spotted appearance, as their white hair begins to
fall out (sealers call them 'ragged-jackets' at this stage). When
the moult is complete, the pups are clothed in a silvery-grey coat
with black spots, and are referred to as 'beaters'. They remain on
the ice until the ice begins to break up, at which point they enter
the water and begin to feed,
gradually moving north to the Arctic summer feeding grounds. When
the beaters moult the following year, they become
'bedlamers'. They gradually lose their spots over the next few
years, and assume their characteristic adult coat by the time they
are sexually mature (females at age four, males at about six to
seven years).

Hooded seals

Hooded seals (Cystophora cristata) follow a similar migratory
cycle, associated with the advance and retreat of the pack ice.
They, too, breed in three areas: in the Gulf and Front of the
Northwest Atlantic, on the west Ice near Jan Mayen; and in the
Davis Strait between Greenland and Baffin Island.

Pups are born in the second half of March, and are a striking blue-
grey colour on the back, blending into silvery-grey on the sides
and belly. The pelt of the blueback was once the most prized of all
hair seals. On extremely rich milk with over 50% fat, the pups
double their weight to 40 kg in a mere four days. This is the
shortest nursing period of any mammal. The adults then mate and the
population disperses. From that point on, no one knows where hooded
seals go, nor what they do there, until they re-congregate for the
annual summer moult in the Denmark Strait, between Iceland and
Greenland. Females can first mate at the age of three years, and
while males reach sexual maturity at four to six years, they do not
breed until much later. Average lifespan is about 30 years, the
same as for harp seals.

History of the hunt and management

Seals have been hunted in Atlantic Canada by native people from
time immemorial, but exploitation by Europeans dates from the
1500's. The greatest recorded catches took place from 1818 to 1862,
the so called 'Golden Age of Sealing'. During this 44 year period,
over 18.3 million seals (mostly harps) were reported killed, with
a peak in 1832 of some 740,000 animals. A further 12.8 million had
been taken by 1900. These numbers are an
underestimate for they do not include those animals lost on the ice
or in shipwrecks. The seal herds could obviously not sustain such
carnage forever. By the 1860's, catches had begun a steady decline
which was to continue until the 1920's, when they
averaged 154,000 harp seals annually. There was a brief
resurgence following World War II, but by the 1960's catches of
both harps and hoods had begun to fall again. Quotas were
instituted in the early 1970's in an effort to stem the decline.

Conversely, hunting for harps and hoods on the West Ice did not
begin until the lath century, as an offshoot from whaling at
Svalbard. Though records are incomplete, Norwegian catches
appear to have reached a peak at more than 100,000 harps and hoods
during the 1870's. By the end of the l9th century the West Ice
herds had also been severely depleted, and catches fell. Steady
declines in the catches of both species have continued throughout
this century.

As in Canada, harps in the White Sea had been sought for
centuries by coastal people. Commercial sealing by large vessels
began in the early 1900's by Norway and the Soviet Union.
Catches quickly reached a peak of 467,000 seals in 1925, and then
began a precipitous decline. The catches made a brief
resurgence in the early 1950's, before quotas were introduced in
1955. By the 1970's, annual kills were about 40,000 harp seals.

Seals have also been exploited in Greenland. Catches of harp seals
slowly declined from 20-25,000 in the 1940's to 5-10,000 in the
mid-70's, then increased to about 20,000 by the early 1980's.
Hooded seal catches have similarly increased sharply in the past
ten years.

History and impact of the EEC import ban

By 1980, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain had all imposed some
sort of restriction on the importation of seal products. Then in
April of that year, Mr. Stanley Johnson introduced a motion in the
European Parliament for a Community-wide import ban. The issue was
referred to the Environment Committee, and the
resulting Maij-Weggen Report was adopted by Parliament on 11 March
1982. After much negotiation between Canada, Norway, and the
Commission, the Council of Ministers issued a Directive on 28 March
1983 (Directive No. 83/129/EEC), imposing a ban on imports of the
skins of white coat pups of harp seals and of pups of hooded seals
blue backs), except those resulting from traditional hunting by the
Inuit people. The ban was to apply for two years, beginning on 1
October 1983. On 27 September 1985, the Council extended the ban
for a further four years. It is currently due to expire on 1
October 1989.

The resultant drop in market demand for seal skins had an
immediate and dramatic effect. Major buyers announced that they
would no longer purchase white coats and blue backs, and some
processing plants in Canada closed.

In the Northwest Atlantic, the killing of harp seals plummeted by
over 80%, from more than 167,000 in 1982 to 31,000 in 1984. A
similar drop occurred on the West Ice. The hooded seal hunt
virtually disappeared overnight in both areas; for instance, at
Newfoundland it fell from 10,000 in 1982 to slightly over 100
animals the following spring. On the other hand, the number of
harps and hoods caught in Greenland was unchanged, and there was no
effect on the level of the hunt in the White Sea.

The impact was not limited to harps and hoods, however.

Worldwide demand for seal skins of all species dropped by about 75%
from the late 1970's to the mid 1980's. This is reflected in
declines in other areas, such as South Africa and the Canadian
Arctic. 

Certain management changes were also made. On the West Ice, quotas
were temporarily lowered for both harps and hoods. In Canada, the
quota for hoods was reduced from 15,000 in 1982 to 2,340 in 1984.
The number of harp seals that could be killed remained at 175,000.

However, many of these changes were short-lived. Currently, sealing
is undergoing a revival in the North Atlantic. Both catches and
quotas have been increased for harps and hoods on the West Ice. For
instance, the harp seal quota was more than doubled from 11,500 in
1986 to 25,000 the following year.
Norwegian sealers killed over 11,000 harps in 1987, up from 557 in
1985.

Similarly, the harp seal hunt is escalating dramatically in Canada.
After a low of 19,000 in 1985, the catch this year
climbed to over 70,000 seals, the largest kill since 1983. The
sealskin processing plants reopened in 1987, and prices were
reported to be very good this year.

Current status

The current size and status of many of the stocks of harps and
hoods, as well as their levels of pup production, are uncertain.

In the Northwest Atlantic, it is generally accepted that over
exploitation caused the herd of harp seals to decline
drastically from the 1950's to the 1970's, possibly by as much as
66%. The official Canadian government position is that the
imposition of quotas in 1971 allowed the herd to increase as a
result of reduced kills. Consistently, the most recent estimate
from Canadian scientists suggested an increase in pup production
from 1967-1983. However, a number of recent studies have
concluded that such an increase is not at all certain, and that pup
production may have continued to decline. For example, a report
prepared in 1985 for Canada's Royal Commission on Seals and the
Sealing Industry concluded that:

It is not possible to determine from the data examined whether the
population has been increasing or declining in recent years, nor
whether the population would increase or decline under a level of
exploitation corresponding to the current Canadian quota.

The Royal Commission assumed that the herd has increased since the
import ban took effect in 1983, due to reduced catches, but this
has not been demonstrated. The status of hoods in Canada is
similarly controversial. Recently, scientists conducted aerial
surveys of the whelping patches, and concluded that pup
production was almost double the estimate for the 1960's.
However, the earlier estimate was based on a very different
technique, with different assumptions and biases, and it is not
clear that it is valid to compare these two methods of
estimating pup production. The Royal Commission stated that the
figures were:

strong, but not conclusive, evidence of an increase.


The Royal Commission also pointed out that hoods appear to be
subject to long-term natural fluctuations in abundance, which may
override any changes in hunting effort. In other words, it is
difficult to predict what would happen to the stock in the long
term under any level of exploitation.

The status of the stocks of harps and hoods on the West Ice can be
best summed up as unknown. A major review conducted by the
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) in 1985
was unable to reach a conclusion on the current population size,
level of pup production or sustainable yield for either species. It
stated that the hooded seal population:

could have increased or decreased substantially during the
period 1970-85.

What is known is that harps declined by some 70-80% from 1945 to
1965, due to over-hunting. Similarly, hooded seal pup production
dropped by over 50% from 1955 to the 1970's.

The situation regarding harp seals in the East Ice is scarcely
better known, and there seems to be disagreement between
Norwegian and Soviet scientists over the ability of the herd to
withstand current quota levels. In fact, the Soviets have a policy
of not taking their entire allotment under the quota, and express
concern about over-exploitation.

In summary, there may be grounds for guarded optimism about the
health of the Northwest Atlantic stocks of harps and hoods. Much of
that is due to the reduced catches of recent years resulting from
the import ban. Conversely, the situation still seems
critical for the West and East Ice herds.

Considerable publicity has been given recently to the
catastrophic declines in fish stocks in the Barents Sea. Norway has
suggested that the problem is due to the imposition of the sealskin
import ban, which allegedly led to rapid increases in the seal
population, which then decimated the fish stocks.

Harp seals and the Barents Sea

To the contrary: the Barents Sea situation is a striking example of
what can happen to a marine ecosystem in the face of over-fishing
and irresponsible management. Not only does the Sea itself suffer;
so do the local communities which depend upon the wealth of the Sea
for their well-being.

Herring stocks were fished to the point of collapse in the late
1960's, and are still a mere fraction of stock sizes 20 years ago.
Capelin were fished until they, too, collapsed. By 1986, the stock
was estimated to be at less than 2% of its mid-1970's level, and a
moratorium on capelin fishing has been in effect since 1987. Polar
cod and Arctic cod are also in serious decline as a result of
overfishing, and prawns are heavily exploited.


The Barents Sea is also the summer feeding ground for harp seals
from both the East and West Ice. They feed there on the very
species which have been decimated by commercial fisheries. Since
the seals are unable to find enough food in the normally rich
Barents Sea, they are forced to search elsewhere. The result is
that seals in poor condition have appeared in unusual places at
unexpected times in recent years.

The current disastrous situation in the Barents Sea is due to
mismanagement of a precious, theoretically renewable,resource.
Resuming large scale sealing will not allow the recovery of the
fish stocks. Rather, it is the destructive over-fishing that should
be curtailed.