In Quebec, seal hunters dream of rehabilitating it

A highly controversial activity, seal hunting ignites passions. However, Quebecers from the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence dream of rehabilitating it, supported by fishermen who fear for fish stocks.

In this archipelago, hunting is possible almost all year round: in winter on ice, in summer by boat.

Set on top of his zodiac, hunter and photographer Yoannis Menge is keen to remind us that this is an ancestral custom for the islands’ inhabitants, the Madeleinotes, but also for many of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples, including the Inuit.

Despite the wind and rough seas, his small contingent set sail from Gros-Île, the northern tip of the archipelago, in late May with an AFP team. A row of seals take in the sunlight on a sand dune in front of the boat.

But at the slightest sound, they run away. Once in the water, reaching them becomes even more complicated. Only their little black heads stick out.

After all, it is on the beach that the hunters achieve their targets with the help of rifles. After a few minutes, the animal is killed directly on the spot.

“Here we live with the seal, we don’t just hunt it,” explains Yoannis Menge.

“What prompted the United States or Europe to ban seal products? These are sentimental reasons. It is the only animal that has been boycotted for sentimental reasons”, says the man in his forties who spent many years photographing the poachers.

– “Assassin” –

A shocking image often comes to mind when talking about seal hunting in the Magdalen Islands. Pictured by Brigitte Bardot, who in the late 70s posed on an ice floe with a white coat, these young seals were barely a few days old.

Activists were particularly opposed to the clubbing technique, which involves beating the animal to death.

“We were treated like savages, barbarians and murderers,” recalls Gill Theriault, director of the Association of Intra-Québec Seal Hunters.

“These are insults that have hurt us a lot. It was an attack against our way of life”, regrets Medlinot.

Since then, hunting for “sea wolves” as they are called here has been in steady decline. On the east coast of Canada, there are grey, harp, harbour, bearded, hooded and ringed seals. But commercial hunting mainly belongs to the first two groups.

During the 1950s and 1960s, white coats dominated the look, their white coats being in great demand in the fashion industry. It was banned in 1987.

And gradually the doors will be closed for poachers: the United States has banned seal products since 1972.

And in 2010, the European Union banned it due to hunting methods deemed too “cruel”, a blow to the industry which lost 30% of its customers.

Today, the animal is hunted primarily for local consumption and for its meat for some Quebec gourmet restaurants.

But some would like to make this meat more famous, such as the island’s butcher Regin Vigneau, who makes about fifteen different products from sea bass – sausages, terrines…

“It is a local meat, without hormones, rich in iron, lean, excellent for health”, explains the little man, who is one of a few dozen active hunters today, whereas a few decades ago it was one of hundreds.

He added, “It is surprising that it is still so disliked on the planet.”

Fish stock at low level

A decline that hunters today dream of reversing, explaining that the seals have few hunters and now threaten the fish stocks, the Madelinauts’ main resource.

“In the Gulf, given the number of gray seals and their consumption of cod, plaice or herring – we have a problem. The fish stocks are not growing”, fisherman Ghislaine Cyr lamented.

“The seal population has increased exponentially since the 1970s,” confirms Simon Nadeau, a marine mammal specialist with the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans. “But we’re not talking about overpopulation.”

The number of harp seals in the northwest Atlantic nearly quadrupled between 1970 and 2019 to 7.6 million. And the gray seal population has grown from 5,000 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to 44,000 in 2017.

In contrast, Canada’s groundfish stocks are at the lowest levels on record.

But for Simon Nadeau, the two may not be so easily linked, especially because entire ecosystems have been modified in recent decades due to global warming and overfishing.

“Seals may have contributed to the decline of the fish, but they are not the cause of this decline,” he adds, acknowledging that they are now part of the factors that prevent some stocks from recovering.