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Topic spans: 1958 - 2003
Pelts, Pups and Protest: The Atlantic Seal Hunt
Those beseeching eyes were impossible to avoid. In the 1970s images of fuzzy white seal pups were everywhere as activists fought to end the seal hunt in Canada. Seals have been harvested for generations on the floes of the Atlantic coast, but concerns about killing methods and conserving the herd virtually ended the practice in the 1980s. The threat of too many cod-eating seals resurrected the hunt, and today anti-cruelty activists monitor an industry that's at its strongest in decades.
12 television clips
9 radio clips
U.K. boycott threatens Canadian fishery
Broadcast Date: April 3, 1984
"Will you stop this carnage and butchery? You can by not buying Canadian fish products!" A young woman on a Nottingham street exhorts passersby to help pressure the Canadian government to end the seal hunt. Heartbreaking images of seal pups dominate the boycott literature, and coordinators say the campaign has already succeeded beyond their expectations. On CBC's The Journal, Canada's high commissioner says sales of B.C. salmon have suffered more than any east coast species.U.K. boycott threatens Canadian fishery
• In 1982 Canadian fish exports to Britain were worth approximately $80 million — ten per cent of total worldwide exports.• The IFAW boycott campaign in Britain began immediately after the European Commission ban was extended in October 1983. On Feb. 6, 1984, the supermarket chain Tesco, with 465 stores, said it would no longer stock Canadian fish products until the seal hunt was ended. Safeway, with 105 stores, soon followed.
• In 1984, due to the EEC export ban and British fish boycott, there was no vessel-based commercial seal hunt; only landsmen went out.
• The Canadian government refused to give in to the boycott that year and announced it would guarantee sealers 80 per cent of the usual price for seal pelts — about $24 each.
• Fish products manufacturers, fearful the fish boycott would spread to the United States, urged an end to the seal hunt. Even the fisheries ministers of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia agreed the danger of losing the U.S. market would justify a ban.
• Other groups, including the Fisheries Council of Canada, the Canadian Sealers' Association and the federal Progressive Conservatives (then the Opposition in Ottawa), supported a moratorium on hunting whitecoat seal pups.
U.K. boycott threatens Canadian fishery
Medium: Television
Program: The Journal
Broadcast Date: April 3, 1984
Guest(s): Pater Davis, Dan Jamieson, Ian McPhail, Dan Morast, Richard Sweet
Host: Bill Cameron, Barbara Frum
Reporter: Bruce Garvey
Duration: 17:28
Last updated:
Oct. 20, 2003
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U.K. boycott threatens Canadian fishery .
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: Oct. 20, 2003.
[Page consulted on Feb. 13, 2012.]