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Liberal Cause Alert: Protect Seals By Avoiding Canadian Seafood

Posted by Tim Carman on Jan. 14, 2009, at 5:09 pm

Everyone, it seems, has a cause to champion during Inauguration Week, but this one is close to my heart: the Canadian seal hunt. I know, I know, you’ve heard about all this stuff before, and you’ve got bigger fish to fry than seals, so to speak, during these troubled times. But give me a minute here.

I’ve stood on the ice floes in the middle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and seen the seal hunt up close. I covered it in 2005 for the Humane Society of the United States. It’s one of the most barbaric scenes you’ll ever see. The sound of a hakapik crushing a seal’s skull is not something you forget easily. Nor do you forget being chased by a marauding band of Newfoundlander hillbillies with knives and hakapiks. Nor do you forget standing there on an ice floe, a hundred feet or so from your helicopter, as a sealer’s boat starts to ram into your floating cake, hoping you’ll tumble into the icy waters.

And what’s it all for? It’s not for food. Every person I interviewed on Prince Edward Island, where I stayed during the hunt, said the meat tastes like shit. Instead, the sealers send the pelts to Euro-trash fashion designers who turn them into club coats or some crap like that.

Like just about everyone else, The HSUS is using Inauguration Week to promote its campaign to boycott Canadian seafood. The idea behind the campaign is too complex to explain in a blog item, but suffice to say that every time you eat in a restaurant that boycotts Canadian seafood, you’ll be helping the cause. More than 150 restaurants in the area have joined the boycott, including Central Michel Richard, CityZen, and PS 7’s. The full list of participating restaurants are listed after the jump.

1789 Restaurant
2941 Restaurant
Agraria
Aioli Meditalian Gourmet
Amici Miei
Ardeo
Aroma Indian Cuisine
Banana Café
Bangkok Joe’s Dumpling Bar and
Café
Bardeo
Bastille
Bice
Bistro Bis
Bistro Bistro
Bobby’s Crabcakes
Bodega Spanish Tapas and
Lounge
Bombay Club Restaurant
Bombay Indian Restaurant
Bonsai Restaurant
Buck’s Fishing and Camping
Bullfeathers
Busboys & Poets, three locations
Café Atlantico
Cashion’s Eat Place
Cava Restaurant
Central Michel Richard
Cesco Trattoria
Chef Theo’s
China House
Chinatown Garden Restaurant
Circle Bistro
CityZen Restaurant
Comet Ping Pong
CommonWealth Gastropub
Da Marco Ristorante Italiano
David Craig Bethesda
Dish
District Chophouse and Brewery
Eammon’s Dublin Chipper
Equinox
Evening Star Café
Fado
Filomena Ristorante
Finn & Porter
Foti’s
Golden Flame
Hank’s Oyster Bar, two locations
Heritage India
Houston’s, two locations
Il Mulino
Indebleu
Jackie’s Restaurant
Kaz Sushi Bistro
Kotobuki
La Chaumiere
La Tasca, four locations
Le Paradou
Le Petit Mistral
Lebanese Café, three locations
Lebanese Taverna, five locations
Legal Sea Foods, five locations
Leopold’s Kafe and Konditorei
Little India
Mandalay Restaurant
Mark and Orlando’s Restaurant
Mark’s Kitchen
Marrakesh Palace and Pasha
Lounge
Mehak Indian Cuisine
Mendocino Grille and Wine Bar
Michel Richard Citronelle
Middle Eastern Cuisine
Minh’s
Minibar
Miss Saigon
Monterey Bay Fish Grotto
Montmartre
New Heights
News Café
Nicaro
Notti Bianche
Odeon
Olazzo
Olive Lounge & Grill
Otello
Paper Moon
Passage to India
Pesce
PGA Tour Grill
Polo India Club
Poste Moderne Brasserie
PS7’s Restaurant
Raaga Fine Indian Cuisine and
Catering
Rasika
Red Line Grill
Restaurant Eve
Restaurant Nora
RFD Washington
Ristorante Tosca
Rock Creek at Mazza
Rock Creek Restaurant
Rustico
Saigonique
Sala Thai, five locations
Samantha’s
Savory Cafe
Sonoma Restaurant
Spezie Ristorante
Starfish Café
Stars Bistro and Bar
Steam Café
Sushi Go Round
Tabard Inn
Taberna del Alabardero
Taj Mahal Restaurant
Talulla
Taste of Morocco
Ted’s Montana Grill, four
locations
Tesoro
Thai Derm
Thai at Silver Spring
Thai Shirlington
The Grill from Ipanema
The Hawk and Dove
Restaurant
The Majestic
The Occidental
The Oceanaire Seafood Room
The Oval Room
The Reef
Uni a Sushi Place
Vermilion
Vidalia
Viet Royale
Willow
Woodmont Grill
Zack’s Taverna
Zengo

Tags: Canadian seall hunt, Humane Society of the United States, Restaurants, seafood

Comments

Sea lProtection Action Group January 15th, 2009
9:05 am

#1

Tim,

It’s great that you are championing this very important cause via Inauguration Week.

Fantastic news that over 150 restaurants are participating in the boycott – let’s hope that further restaurants sign up.

With regards to the annual hunt, have you heard / read about the Canadian Government proposing to ‘tweak’ the seal hunting regulations in an attempt to make the hunt appear more humane, with the threat of a European Community ban on all seal products an increasing possibility this year.

One measure proposes to ban the use the spiked club or ‘hakapik’ to kill seals over a year old unless they have been shot first.

However tweaking the regulations on killing methods will do nothing to diminish public anger and revulsion at this brutal and cruel hunt. Hundreds of thousands of seal pups will still be shot, gaffed and clubbed, with many animals still skinned alive, and that is totally unacceptable in a civilized and compassionate world

The Canadian seal hunt is a hideously cruel, environmental atrocity and nothing the Canadian Government can do will alter that fact other than ending it once and for all. The damage it does to Canada’s image and reputation is incalculable

The Seal Protection Action Group (SPAG) has been campaigning for a comprehensive EU import ban on all seal products for several years. Unfortunately, although a ban is increasingly likely this year, there is increasing concern that under current proposals seal imports will still be permitted from hunts that meet set criteria for humane killing.

The UK Government is supporting an EU ban on all seal product imports, however SPAG is concerned over the woefully inadequate protection afforded to the UK’s globally important populations of common and grey seals. An estimated 5,000 seals are shot in Scottish waters alone each year by the Scottish salmon industry with scientists recently reporting a ‘frightening’ decline in common seals.

If you want to read more about our campaigns to protect seals in Canada and the UK please visit our website for further information: http://www.sealaction.org

Thanks!
Kathryn January 15th, 2009
11:12 am

#2

Thank you so much Tim for bringing this important issue to light. As a Humane Society of the United States staff member, I have witnessed firsthand the concern many of these great chefs and restaurant managers have for the baby seals in Canada and how grateful they are to be able to help us stop this hunt once and for all. By boycotting Canadian seafood, they are affecting the fishermen that kill these seals for their fur and pressuring them to end the hunt.

We hope that even more restaurants and individuals across the country will speak out against this cruel hunt and sign our pledge at http://www.humanesociety.org/protectseals

Thanks again Tim!

Kathryn Kullberg
Campaign Manager, Wildlife Programs
The Humane Society of the United States
http://www.humanesociety.org
Julie Falconer January 15th, 2009
1:41 pm

#3

Tim, thanks for bringing up this issue. I checked out the video footage on The HSUS website, and it’s as sickening and disturbing as you describe.

I’m glad to see that our local restaurants are taking a stand against this senseless cruelty to animals. I’ll be sure to choose from this list when I go out to eat.
Devon McDonald January 15th, 2009
6:00 pm

#4

At any given time there are hundreds of items being boycotted on the internet. I am not sure just how much good this really does.
MiketheWaiter January 15th, 2009
10:27 pm

#5

the utter barbarity of man will never cease to amaze and disgust me. Thanks for bringing this up. Yes, we are shocked … and preoccupied by Gaza, the inauguration, etc .. but how human and humane are we if we forget the seals. Wilt Chamberlin, an american basketball legend, was proud of a bedspread he had that was made of the nose fur (apparently the softest part) of 10,000 baby seals … no doubt he will rest with satan and those newfoundland hillbillies you alluded to earlier. Keep up the good work!
xcanuck January 16th, 2009
10:24 am

#6

I’m willing to be educated on this. How does punishing the seafood industry twist the arms of the seal hunters? Are they one and the same? Is one a subset of the other (and if so, does that warrant punishing those on the outside)?

I’m not nor have I ever been a supporter of the fur trade. I’m just not sure how big the intersection set of seafood and fur trade is.

And, yes, I’m big into venn diagrams.
Tim Carman January 16th, 2009
11:13 am

#7

Amit, here’s the HSUS’s explanation on the connection:

http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/protect_seals/why_a_boycott_of_canadian_seafood/
Don Clarke January 17th, 2009
10:14 am

#8

Boycotting Canadian seafood is a mistake if people want to save seals. My cousin lives in Newfoundland and told me that anytime that there’s been a slow down in the fishery or the fishery does not bring enough money to the fishermen, more fishermen take part in the seal hunt to make up for the lost income. Also, there are many fishermen in Canada that have nothing to do with the seal hunt, so why hurt them with a boycott? If these other fishermen lose money, so do many other people outside of the fishery, and causing people outside of the fishery to lose money is not going to help the cause of saving seals because these folks are not going to support anyone or any organization that are taking money from their pockets.
xcanuck January 21st, 2009
4:28 pm

#9

I read the HSUS article and it essentially says that the boycott will hurt the Canadian economy and this is the best way to get the Canadian gov’t to change their laws.

Hrmmm…and what do we call it when you hold a gun to someone’s head to get someone else to change their actions? Especially when the person you’re pressing the gun against has nothing to do with what the second person is doing? And this is something to be proud of? Sorry – I just can’t buy into it.