Icy Battleground: Canada the IFAW and the Seal Hunt

FOREWORD

The Honourable John C. Crosbie, P.C., O.C., Q.C.

It is an honour to be asked to write a foreword to this outstanding book. Icy Battleground dispassionately examines the long-standing conflict between the government and public interest groups led by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), over the future of the seal hunt. Created and inspired by Brian Davies, IFAW has been the primary force behind an emotionally charged and obsessive campaign to end commercial sealing. The main weapons used by Davies to win over public opinion have been images of grim-faced sealers bludgeoning adorable ‘baby’ seals.

In order to appreciate the passionate resistance of Newfoundlanders to attacks on the seal hunt, one needs to understand Newfoundland’s history and geography, and the difficult climate and harsh conditions with which the settlers had to contend. Isolation and severe conditions required them to exploit every possible means of livelihood. Another pervasive influence on the Newfoundland temperament was the Imperial Government’s policy of discouraging settlement. As a result of this policy and the difficult local conditions, there were only 20,000 permanent settlers in Newfoundland by 1804. What eventually spurred greater settlement was the economic boost the development of the seal fishery brought in the early nineteenth century. By 1847, participation in sealing had grown substantially with 340 vessels and 8,400 men engaged in the hunt. An annual harvest of 500,000 seals was not uncommon. By 1869, the population of the province had increased to 146,536 residents.

It was the cod fishery that originally prompted European settlement in Newfoundland. Communities were established wherever access to cod was available and eventually the seal hunt added economic activity in late winter and early spring. Newfoundlanders lived by harvesting the various species of the ocean and by hunting animals on land. These experiences of endurance and survival are etched into our collective memory. This explains why we so greatly resent the vicious attacks on the seal hunt over the last 40 years. Those who oppose the seal fishery give little thought to the dangers involved in carrying out the hunt and the many hundreds of Newfoundlanders who died in sealing disasters.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the seal hunt and in how public interest groups operate. It is also a superb account of the conflict between the cultures of modern urban society and traditional rural communities—a conflict that is going to become increasingly important as world industrialisation and urbanisation continue their unrelenting course.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Icy Battleground began as a study of the European Community’s decision in 1983 to ban the import of seal pup skins and products. However, it quickly became apparent that the Community’s action was only part of a larger and no less important story that deserved to be told. This book is the result.

Many people helped in the preparation of this volume. Some 70 government, industry and interest group officials, and close observers of the seal hunt issue generously shared their information and insights. Not all of them can be named, but they know that I am grateful. Brian Davies and Stephen Best went out of their way to respond to my requests. The library staffs of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and the Delegation of the European Commision in Canada were unfailingly helpful. Richard Ablett gave me the benefit of his reflections on the seal hunt as a public policy issue, and read and commented on the entire text. Kingsley Brown, James Candow, Stan Drabek, Mark Dickerson, Neal Jotham, and Senator John Stewart also read the manuscript in whole or part and made many constructive suggestions. The late Morrissey Johnson, and Jim and Sharron Winter gave me a sense of the atmosphere of the hunt and the protests. My wife, Maria, was a constant source of encouragement and support, and kept me focused when distractions beckoned.

The Honourable John Crosbie generously contributed the foreword, which offers a distinguished politician’s insights into the importance of the hunt and its public policy significance. All photographs are reprinted with the kind permission of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Funding for the study was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the University Research Grants Committee of the University of Calgary. Wade Foote guided the volume through the publication process; Tom Henihan offered valuable editorial advice.

With great pleasure, I thank them all.

ACRONYMS

INTRODUCTION

Sealing has been part of the way of life for Canada’s Atlantic coastal dwellers for hundreds of years. The French explorer, Jacques Cartier, found Labrador natives hunting seals when he sailed into the Strait of Belle Isle in 1534. By the end of the sixteenth century, seals had become an important part of the European fleets’ catch on their annual fishing expeditions to the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Seals also provided food, clothing, and income crucial to the survival of outport communities along the northeast coast of Newfoundland and the north shore of Quebec. The advent of offshore sealing ships in the late eighteenth century enabled hunters to reach the ice floes where the breeding areas were located. This transformed sealing into an important occupation in late winter and early spring, especially in Newfoundland. By the middle of the nineteenth century, a substantial portion of the population was employed in the industry.¹

The first half of the twentieth century saw the era of large-scale sealing draw to a close. Prior to World War II, Canada was a predominantly rural society. After the war, it became increasingly urbanised. Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949 and by the 1960s, entire outport communities were being uprooted to growth centres providing better opportunities and social amenities, but this did not lessen the need for income for coastal communities who depended upon the resources of the sea. However, the new mores of urban publics, who were keenly interested in protecting the environment yet far removed from circumstances in which seals were an important resource, recast the sealers as cruel anachronisms, out of step with modern sensibilities.

Dramatic film footage of the seal hunt in 1964 evoked a powerful response in Canada, Western Europe, and the United States. Images of fluffy, white baby seals of astonishing beauty being clubbed to death for their skins in a pristine, icy wilderness, became activist icons that hardly needed burnishing. The resulting controversy strained Canada’s capacity to manage the domestic and international politics of the hunt.

This book tells the story of how a collection of animal welfare, conservation, and environmental groups, led by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), mobilised public pressure in Canada and abroad to oppose the hunting of seal pups from large vessels in the Northwest Atlantic. This pressure culminated in the closure of the pivotal European market for seal pup skins and products in 1983. The following year, Canadian fish sales were boycotted in Britain and the United States. This forced the Canadian government to impose a formal ban on the commercial hunting of harp and hooded seal pups in 1987, leaving only a reduced hunt for more mature seals.

The expansion of the hunt for older seals since the mid-1990s has brought sealing under renewed attack. Supporters of the hunt—mainly sealing and fishing interests, and the Canadian, and Newfoundland and Labrador governments—claim that increased catches are justified by promising market conditions. There is also a need to control the burgeoning seal population that, according to many observers, threatens the recovery of depleted east coast groundfish stocks. IFAW and other opponents question the economic value and humaneness of the hunt, and contend that there is no credible scientific evidence linking seal predation to the recovery of the stocks.

The seal hunt controversy has often challenged the Canadian government’s policy-making process. The principal agencies involved are the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), which is responsible for managing Canada’s marine resources, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, which is charged with the conduct of foreign policy and trade.² Fisheries and Oceans has sought to maintain a sustainable hunt for the benefit of those depending on the resource, while Foreign Affairs and International Trade has focused on the effects of the controversy on Canada’s external image and commercial interests. At times, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet have had to intervene to resolve competing views as the two departments struggled to define the government’s policy in the face of conflicting pressures.

Public Interest Groups

The animal welfare, conservation, and environmental groups involved in the seal hunt controversy are known as public interest groups, which defend or promote particular values and policies in the name of some general good. Public interest groups can be divided into two categories: mainstream groups, whose aims are consistent with broadly supported social goals, and activist groups that call into question accepted orthodoxies.³

Mainstream groups generally pursue their goals by working closely with government authorities. Arlin Hackman of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Canada points out, Governments are made up of individuals and it is simple human nature to respond more favourably to encouragement rather than criticism or abuse, especially if the criticism isn’t backed by sufficient power to compel action.⁴ Consequently, mainstream groups are reluctant to disrupt their relations with decision-makers. They are also careful not to put their support at risk by advocating causes ahead of public opinion, except where important matters of principal are involved.⁵

The conservatism of mainstream groups is also a consequence of the fact that they represent diverse interests and have no clear process for deciding which competing concerns should be given priority. For example, internal differences have sometimes blocked the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies (a national organisation representing more than a hundred member societies devoted to preventing cruelty to animals) from taking a stand on controversial issues. Due to their status as charitable organisations, mainstream groups are also limited in their ability to engage in lobbying activities. Charitable status exempts the groups from income tax and donors’ contributions are tax deductible.⁶

By contrast, activist groups challenge established policies and as a result are unlikely to enjoy easy access to government decision makers. This lack of access often forces them to seek other ways of promoting their causes, including demonstrations and media events, to sway public opinion in their favour. Individuals with determination and entrepreneurial skills are often the driving forces behind the formation of activist groups, even though interest in the causes they promote may be well established. These groups also tend to adopt centralised organisational structures built around an appealing leader to facilitate quick decisions and generate support and funding.⁷ Strong memberships are crucial to activist campaigns, but usually they provide support rather than participate in decision-making. Although activist groups keep their members informed, they seldom provide them with an opportunity to express their views. Commitment to an organisation’s cause and the satisfaction gained from participating in successful campaigns often provides sufficient reward and reinforces loyalty.⁸

Since activist groups place great emphasis on the media in mobilising support for their campaigns, public perception is crucial. As Stephen Best, founding director of Environment Voters and a former IFAW official explains, Although, from an internal organizational standpoint we would have a broad mandate of things we want to deal with—everything from problems in medical research, factory farming, environmental issues, habitat destruction, and so on and so forth—by simple economics we can only deal in those areas that have public support.⁹

Activist groups do not try to cultivate broad support. What is important, according to Best, is the percentage you get, and the threshold percentage of active people is probably around 2% or 3% of the population. In other words, although a public opinion poll may say that 60 percent oppose or support a given policy, what matters politically are the people who become actively involved. The bulk of the population will have an opinion, but unless it manifests itself in some overt way, it is meaningless, Best concludes.¹⁰

As governments adopt policies favoured by activist groups, the focus of these groups tends to shift from advocacy to the protection of gains achieved. As a result, they often assume characteristics of their mainstream counterparts, although this is not always the case. Some activist groups refuse to work closely with government out of concern that they will be co-opted and their ability to pursue their goals compromised. In other cases they are not able to achieve their aims by collaborating with government agencies because the agencies are not powerful enough to implement their demands. Moreover, some groups need public victories to ensure the continued loyalty of their members.¹¹

It is generally argued that mainstream groups, because of their constructive approach and broad public support, dominate interaction with governments.¹² However, the seal hunt issue shows how activist groups, using an adversarial, publicity-oriented strategy, succeeded in winning over public opinion, forcing a government to change its policy. This success led mainstream groups to abandon their behind-the-scenes efforts to influence policy and to adopt the more confrontational methods used by activist groups.¹³ The campaign waged by IFAW was central to this change.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare

Opposition to established values places the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) among activist groups, although as a result of its successes over the years it has assumed some of the characteristics of main-stream organisations. Brian Davies founded IFAW in 1969 and remained the driving force behind the organisation until his retirement in January 1997. Davies was born in the Welsh mining village of Tonyrefall in 1935. He left school at fourteen and held a variety of jobs before immigrating to Canada in 1955. He joined the Canadian army the following year, after working briefly as a door-to-door salesman. He resigned from the military in 1961 to become field secretary and then executive secretary of the New Brunswick Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).¹⁴

Davies represented the SPCA on a government-sponsored team of conservation and animal welfare officials observing the 1965 seal hunt. Shortly afterwards, the New Brunswick SPCA began mobilising for the abolition of large-vessel sealing, with Davies in charge of the campaign. Having learned the value of newspapers and television in exposing cruelty to animals, Davies made the media his main vehicle for rallying public opinion to force Ottawa to ban the hunt. Accompanied by Canadian and foreign media representatives, Davies visited the ice floes where the hunt took place, after which he embarked on speaking tours in Canada, Western Europe, and the United States. Follow-up newspaper advertisements soliciting public support for the SPCA’s Save the Seals Fund helped build a list of supporters.

The campaign became so controversial that the New Brunswick SPCA withdrew in 1969. Davies and some of the group’s directors then decided to use the Save the Seals Fund to establish the International Fund for Animal Welfare. He was appointed executive director of the group, with headquarters in Fredericton, New Brunswick. In 1977, as a result of its lobbying activities, IFAW was forced to give up its tax-exempt status in Canada and moved its headquarters to the United States, first to Washington, D.C., and then to Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts.

Davies and his colleagues decided against making IFAW an open-ended, decision-making organisation. Davies and three trustees, who would hold office for life, would run it. I had no intention of submitting the purpose of the organization to the divisive behaviour that goes on at annual meetings of most animal welfare organizations world-wide, he said.¹⁵ According to writer Silver Donald Cameron, during its early years IFAW was essentially a vehicle for one man: Brian Davies, with one goal: to stop the seal hunt. Everything else was just tactics, designed to keep IFAW newsworthy and visible.¹⁶

As IFAW’s membership and budget grew, and its agenda broadened to include other animal welfare concerns, the organisation became more structured, although it still bore Davies’s imprint. Davies stepped aside as executive director in 1984 and handed over management of the group’s day-to-day affairs to Richard Moore, a former