Norway's seal hunters hang up their clubs

[nitpicker]

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38894821

Norway's seal hunters hang up their clubs

By Jorn Madslien
Business reporter, Tromso, Norway

16 February 2017

From the section Business

Captain Bjorne Kvernmo, who first began hunting seals more than four decades ago, guides MS Havsel into the harbour of Tromso, the Norwegian city that owes its existence to his trade. But his vessel is not arriving laden with dead seals. Rather, he and his crew are in Tromso for the premiere of a documentary about Norway's last seal-hunting expedition to the dangerous ice edge off the coast of Greenland.

Sealers - One Last Hunt is an unashamed celebration of a controversial industry that a century ago numbered more than 200 ships. Their owners, captains and crews did much to shape the economy of coastal Norway, which stretches north of the Polar Circle towards Russia and the Barents Sea.

(snip)

Seals are no longer clubbed to death, she explains. Rather, high-powered guns with expanding bullets are used to deliver a swift death. "I think it's perhaps the most ethical meat you can have," Ms Mortensen argues. "The seals are lying on the ice, maybe sleeping, and then they get a shot in the head, and that's it."

After the seals have been shot, dedicated "jumpers" use the hakapik hunting tool - a heavy wooden club with a hammer head and a hook. The jumpers deliver blows to the animals' heads to ensure they are dead, before hooking them and dragging them back to the boat.
(snip)

However, the entire debate about whether Norwegian seal hunting is cruel has been rendered largely irrelevant by a 2009 European Union ban on trade in seal products. That includes skins that are made into boots and jackets, omega 3-rich oil used in food supplements, and meat that has been served in restaurants or cooked in homes across the Arctic region. Seal-skin boots can still be bought in Tromso's shoe shops, but probably not for much longer.
(snip)

However, the withdrawal in 2015 of a 12m kroner (about £1m) Norwegian government subsidy means the practice is no longer economically viable. Subsidies had accounted for up to 80% of sealers' income. More lucrative opportunities now await Mr Kvernmo. These days, his boat is kept afloat by fees from film crews, which help ensure seasoned seal hunters' knowledge about the Arctic lives on.
(snip)

[democratisphere]

1. Seal hunting is a barbaric practice. Hope the market dries up completely.

Thank you for this information.

[NickB79]

2. As the article pointed out, it's probably the most humane meat you can get

"The seals are lying on the ice, maybe sleeping, and then they get a shot in the head, and that's it."

That sounds slightly less cruel than the deer, rabbits, squirrels and turkeys I shoot for meat during hunting season. It is far less cruel than farming livestock, even livestock raised on humane farms. And it is innumerably less cruel than livestock raised on factory farms.

But given the rapid climactic changes shifts going on right now, it was inevitable this practice would end sooner or later. The far bigger threat for the survival of the species has always been the loss of sea ice and fish stocks.