Every March, mother seals off the coast of Newfoundland begin giving birth to their soft, whitecoated pups.

The month also marks the start of the Canadian commercial seal hunt, and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seal pups. Many pups will be shot and clubbed as they try to escape the ice. Seal pups aged three weeks to three months of age are shot with a rifle or killed using a spiked club known as a hakapik. Others will be impaled on metal hooks, dragged across the ice, hoisted onto a bloody boat and beaten to death for their fur¹.

The seals that survive may face an even greater threat as climate change eliminates what's left of their habitats².

Europe first voted to ban the import of whitecoat harp seal and blueback hooded seal skins in 1982, leading to a massive drop in demand for the Canadian sealing industry3. Combined with the threat of an IFAW-led boycott of Canadian seafood, the Canadian government followed with a ban on the killing of whitecoat seals, and the sealing industry was nearly non-existent⁴.

These events led to over one million newborn seals being saved from slaughter in the following years, a trend that stalled out in 1990 as the Minister of Fisheries increased the quota for harp seals and introduced subsidies to revive the sealing industry.

More activism followed, pushing Europe to ban all commercial seal products from non-indigenous hunts. A Russian ban further closed off 90% of the export market for Canadian seal pelts⁵.

At least 36 countries have enacted international trade bans on seal products across the globe, 27 which are members of the EU. The leaders of these countries realize the harp seal faces an uncertain future, and that looming climate change could eliminate the seal's habitat completely⁶.

Sea ice cover is expected to change slightly from year to year. However, it has been steadily declining in the harp seal habitats off Canada's east coast. Harp seals are highly adapted to these environments, giving birth to just one pup per year. When environmental conditions are unfavorable, seal populations can be significantly and rapidly affected⁷.

Harp seal reproduction rates are dropping, and pup mortality is rising. As the sea ice continues to diminish, the impacts on the harp seal population will worsen. There is simply no humane rationale for slaughtering tens of thousands of seal pups for their fur each spring.

Help us shut down markets for seal products all over the world and end this slaughter for good. Sign the petition and protect Canada's seals from slaughter!

More on this issue:

1. Amy Jones, Species Unite (15 April 2022), "Thousands Of Seals Pups Slaughtered As Canada’s Annual Seal Hunt Begins."
2. Sheryl Fink, IFAW, (29 March 2021), "From climate change to culls, threats against harp seals continue in 2021."
3. The Associated Press (5 May 2009), "In swipe at Canada, Europe bans seal products."
4. Sheryl Fink, IFAW (28 March 2019), "IFAW's history working to end Canada's East Coast commercial seal hunt."
5. Danita Catherine Burke, The Conversation (2 September 2021), "How Europe's ban on seal products turned frontier communities into pariahs."
6. European Commission, "Trade in seal products."
7. Rebecca Aldworth, Humane Society International/Canada (19 April 2022), "In Canada, baby seals still face a cruel fate."