Key reads: Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada. Reports on Seals: Links to the latest management plan, the government's response to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans report on Seals, and more. Also from the Department: Understanding Seals and Sealing in Canada and Information to Media: Atlantic Canada seal hunt myths and realities (PDF format, March 2005). For all breaking news on sealing, visit the website of the Seals and Sealing Network.

MMPA - the Act + Government Resources:

Marine Mammal Protection Act. PDF format, 117 pages.

National Marine Fisheries Service, includes overview of MMPA, annual reports to Congress, MMPA reauthorization, MMPA Buletin, and more.

Dept. of the Environment, Environmental Policy & Guidance, MMPA

Articles and Opinion Pieces:

Hunters fear seal bans will hurt industry, by Stephanie McDonald, Northern News Services. (Aug. 13, 2007)

Newfoundland Seal Hunt: Isolated outpost in the eco-wars, by Simon Lono. (Apr. 3, 2006)

(Nunavut's) Greens not opposed to aboriginal sealing, says candidate. CBC News. (Jan. 16, 2006)

Dead wrong, baby; Animal-rights movement hits new low. By Brian Jones, editor, The Sunday Telegram, St. John's, Newfoundland. (Dec. 9, 2005)

What Motivates Seal Hunt Protest Groups? By Myles Higgins, first published by Canada Free Press. (September 2005) Outside link to Man In Nature.

Sleek seal is fashion's "in" skin : Body-conscious buyers drive price of pelt to record high. National Post report, reproduced with permission. (Jan. 4, 2005)

Nunavut flips over jump in seal price. Pelts set record at auction. By Bob Weber for the Canadian Press. (Dec. 27, 2004)

Seal skin fashion to boost Canada's fur trade. The BBC reports from the 22nd North American Fur and Fashion Exposition. (May 5, 2004)

Humane? Canada seal hunt centers on question. Video of hunters used in battle between government, activists. By Miguel Llanos, MSNBC. (Apr. 23, 2004)

So What's Wrong with Clubbing Seals? Boris Johnson, MP and editor of The Spectator, for the Daily Telegraph (UK); retitled here as "Who will defend the seal-clubbers?" (Apr. 15, 2004)

PETA's War on the World's Dispossessed Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, considers the damage done by fur opponents to the sealers of Canada. (Feb. 7, 2003)

Deep Impact : The Shades of Gray Series Series of seven articles by The Phoenix New Times on the North Pacific gray whale, its socio-economic importance to the varied people who live along its migration path, and the politics behind everything from supplying whale meat to Siberian fox farms, to building a giant salt plant in Baja California. (October 2002)

How Can Anyone Kill a Seal? How Can Anyone Possibly Kill a Whale? "These are natural questions from people who have spent their lives in populous western cities. To the peoples from northern regions, these questions provoke no more concern than the question, 'How can anyone ever kill a pig or a cow?'" Statement from the West Nordic Council to mark its theme for 2001, "West Nordic Hunting Culture". Outside link to "Man In Nature". (Apr. 27, 2001)

Wake Up Call Tina Jagros, director of the Canadian Outdoor Heritage Alliance, warns that campaigns against sealing are every resource user's problem. (2001; Outside link to Man In Nature)

The PR Problems of Canada's "Other" Seal Hunt : The Inuit, who depend on seals for food, seek a market for the skins By Ruth Walker. "Ever since the first contact with "the West," going back to early European explorers like Martin Frobisher in the 1570s, the question for the Inuit has been, 'What can we sell to the world?' As dependent on imports as ever, the people of the new Canadian territory of Nunavut, in the eastern Arctic, are asking the same question today. But one of the potentially most promising answers - expanding the sealskin trade - is entangled in the international politics of hunting." Outside link to the Christian Science Monitor, with permission. (May 1, 2000)

National Animal Interest Alliance Highlights Human Rights, Animal Welfare Includes Animal Law Conference Resolution specifically addressing the MMPA. FCUSA press release, Mar. 7, 2000.

Coming to Terms with the Arctic. By Lisa Mastny. By melding ancient hunting traditions with modern political technique, Arctic indigenous peoples present a baffling challenge to environmental diplomacy. As the Arctic ecology itself begins to change, the need for a common understanding is growing increasingly urgent. This article first appeared in the January/February 2000 edition of "World Watch", published by the World Watch Institute, and is distributed by FCUSA with permission. (PDF format; January 2000)

Greenland Pushing for Seal Fur Exports; Environmentalists Maintain Opposition From the Dallas Morning News, reproduced with permission. Dec. 22, 1999.

The Strange Politics of the Marine Mammal Protection Act By Okalik Eegeesiak, President, Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, and Sheila Watt-Cloutier, President, Inuit Circumpolar Conference, Canada. July 26, 1999.

Court Finds IFAW Video Evidence Inadmissible Canadian court refuses to consider a video of alleged transgressions by sealers submitted by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. FCUSA press release, Apr. 21, 1999.

Saving Society from Animal "Snuff" Films FCUSA commentary includes information on staged film of sealing cruelty. (Dec. 15, 1998, updated July 4, 2000)

The Rise and Fall of Animal Rights By Alan Herscovici, a Montreal-based writer and consultant specializing in environmental issues, author of "Second Nature: The Animal-Rights Controversy", and chairman of the Canadian Fur Industry Adjustment Committee. October 1998.

The Tuna-Dolphin Controversy By Michael Scott, senior scientist with the Dolphin Programme of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. Outside link to "Man In Nature". (August 1998)

Self-Service: Swollen Sea Lion Herds Push Fish and Fishermen to the Brink By Mick Kronman, Pacific Bureau Chief, National Fisherman magazine. Outside link to "Man In Nature". (May 1998)

Books:

Seal Wars! An American Viewpoint. Janice Scott Henke analyses the protest movement's multi-media campaign to "save" the seals and the consequences on seal populations, the environment and the human communities involved. (Independent Publishers Group; ASIN: 091951961X; Out of print)

Second Nature: The Animal Rights Controversy. Alan Herscovici outlines a "second nature", a new relationship between man and his environment that can avert the environmental catastrophe the ecology movement has so rightly warned us of. (ISBN 0-88794-149-4)

Websites:

AMIQ Institute (focused on Pribilof, Commander Islands)
Canadian Sealers Association
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)
High North Alliance
Inuit Circumpolar Conference - Canada
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
Nunavut: Canada's Inuit Territory Provided by Nunatsiaq News
Seals and Sealing Network
West Nordic Council (Vestnordisk)

Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada

• Reports on Seals. Links to the Department's latest management plan and to the Government of Canada's response to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans report on Seals.
• Understanding Seals and Sealing in Canada
• Information to Media: Atlantic Canada seal hunt myths and realities (PDF format, March 2005).

Resolutions:

Universal declaration on the ethical harvest of seals (April 2009)

National Animal Interest Alliance [NAIA] Law Conference resolution on the MMPA (March 2000)

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