Subsistence is Survival

It’s cold out there for a seal

When it comes to seal hunting, there’s plenty of mud to sling. Two years ago Ellen DeGeneres called the seal hunt “one of the most atrocious and inhumane acts against animals allowed by any government.” While many of the arguments against the practice are largely emotional, it’s still worth considering that the Inuit rely on seal hunting to survive the harsh northern climates: both for subsistence and in economic trade.

While traditionally Inuit supported themselves with hunting, after settlers came into the north hunting also took on a second purpose: economic survival. Subsistence hunting is based on trade instead of money, as a barter system that was used prior to using money as currency. Subsistence hunting doesn’t allow you to engage in commercial trade.

European settlers began to enter the Arctic in the early 18th century, largely as whalers looking to benefit from hunting these sea mammals. As the whale population began to rapidly decline, the transition to a fur trading economy began, and was significant beginning around the 1920s. Over-harvesting by Europeans put important food sources for Inuit at-risk, and the transition to a fur economy “would define our Inuit way of life right up until the 1990s,” according to a history published by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

Before the European Union seal ban, profits from seal pelts could reach up to $1-million annually. Sealing in Nunavut brings in $4-million to $6-million of food each year, and the Government of Canada stated, “Those incomes allowed Inuit to buy the equipment and gas necessary to continue to hunt, thus provide them with a crucial source of food.”

According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, in 2006 the seal hunt reached a value of $34.1-million. They also say that, “Seals have been harvested for food, fuel, clothing and other products for hundreds of years. In addition to their economic value, seal products hold a significant cultural and traditional value to northern communities.”

Although subsistence hunting was once key for Inuit communities, these days there’s very little of that going on. The Canadian seal hunt has an allowance of 300,000 seals, which the Inuit are exempt from. That would make sense if they went over this limit, or even close to matching it.

The numbers actually reached are pretty small. About 1,000 harp seals and 10,000 ring seals are killed annually by Inuit hunters. As Liberation B.C., a Vancouver-based animal rights group, puts it, “All in all, seal pelts taken by Native people make up about three per cent of the total number in trade.”

There’s no way that cutting that number down would have a large impact on a society, especially when there’s plenty of available produce down at the local supermarket. There aren’t isolated communities out there that depend on seal trade any more.

Canada’s seal hunt began more than 4,000 years ago, long before the arrival of white settlers. The economic use of seals was only established when European fishermen took the trip across the pond. In an article for the University of Iowa History Corps, Sarah Lowenberg points out that, “While the seals they [non-Inuit hunters] catch during the Canadian Seal Hunt are mainly used for their fur and the rest is discarded, the Inuit people use everything from the fur to blubber as a source of clothing and food, respectively.”

An argument that might be offered in defence of keeping the practice is that it’s a cultural history the Inuit want to maintain. That defeats itself though. Subsistence hunting does not allow for commercial trade.

To say that they require the trade to justify the practice based on cultural history is a conflicting idea. Although I might make a small concession and say that if there’s no commercial trade involved, and it’s the main source of food for a group of people, then by all means, use what you kill.

“Nevertheless, when some Inuit kill seals, especially young seals, in order to export their skins to foreign countries, they are not engaging in subsistence hunting,” says Harpseals.org. The practice is outdated to the point of being obsolete.

The people do not rely on the trade for survival, the cultural practice doesn’t allow for trade, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to reconcile the two.