For the sake of diplomacy and good relations, and occasionally a political point, royals and their representatives have regularly chomped on foods not usually found in their pantries. But few have taken to the task with quite the enthusiasm of the governor general of Canada, Michaëlle Jean, as, this week, she cut out the heart of a slaughtered seal and ate it raw.
The Queen’s representative in north America was visiting an Inuit community in Nunavut, in the Arctic, when a couple of dead seals were laid out before her in symbolic defiance of a looming EU ban on seal products. With an ulu blade, a traditional knife, she bent over one of the freshly killed seals and cut along its body. After firmly slicing through the flesh and pulling back the skin, she turned to the woman beside her and asked for a taste. “Could I try the heart?” she said.
A chunk of the organ was duly cut out and handed to Jean, who took a few bites, chewed on it and pronounced it good.
“It’s like sushi,” she said, according to the Canadian Press news agency. “And it’s very rich in protein.”
As she wiped the blood from her mouth and fingers, she said she had done it in solidarity with the Inuit, including those in the community she was visiting, at Rankin Inlet, which is home to 2,300 people. They claim their way of life is threatened by the EU ban on seal products.
Unless bureaucrats figure out how to enforce the vegan religion upon the species I belong to – one which evolved as an omnivore – I intend to eat any animal protein I prefer as long it’s not an endangered species.
Tip: When invited to a Canadian costume party, don’t go as a baby fur seal.
Good for her. I bet it was delicious.
Where did the reference to “endangered species” come from? This was an article about seals. (I don’t see the connection)
According to the article, seals are being banned because “animal rights activists” petitioned the Eurocrats because they don’t want animals having less rights than humans… and (as in all other cases of this sort of thing) “oh no! there’s, like, blood! that’s, like disgusting! ew!! I’m going to have another veggie burger!”
Ok, and they will say that their traditional way of life really involves uncontrolled slaughter of seals for the means of exportation to the EU? hmmm, and I thought the traditional way of life was hunting for the sake of surviving…
Oh well…
This makes me a proud Canadian. I heartily support the seal hunt, because frankly anything that gets hippies out of Canada faster is a good thing, even if i have to listen to Paul McCartney complain once a year on Larry King.
I don’t believe that the EU ban on seal products has anything to do with the Inuit subsistence hunting.
What it does have to do with is the hundreds of thousands of cruelly bludgeoned seals and seal pups in the Maritime provinces, not by Inuit, but by Canadians of white European descent.
#3 – relazar,
It also costs Canada business in the form of tourism from the U.S. and of sea food sales here in the U.S. But, if you don’t like hippie cash, …
#4 – actually for a host of reasons, demand has fallen to about a fifth of what it once was – for all products from the hunt.
#2 – e?
Perhaps you missed how the seals are killed. This is not a humane death. Try watching the video at the link below, if you can stomach it.
http://stopthesealhunt.com
#2 – e?,
As for eating the seal, as you watch the video, let me know how many of the carcasses are being eaten by your good buddies in the Magdalenes.
#6
And I be that those seals humanely kill all the fish that they are eating.
We are culling the exploding seal population because we are competing with them for the same food source. Allowing both species to feed on the fish would create an endagered species, not in the cute and furry seal, but in the fish that they feed on. Is this really any different than a farmer killing a fox that would otherwise feed on its chickens?
4,
There are two sides to the controversy.
1) Inuit subsistence hunting
2) The commercial seal-hunt
What activists are getting on about is that her actions are a cynical affirmation of the commercial seal hunt in the guise of Inuit solidarity.
The GG has never struck me as shrewd. She was a great presenter for The Passionate Eye though…
I looked at your video for the graphic footage but all I saw were some dead seal bits? There was also footage of a man cutting off a bit of seal, and some carcasses on ice (it sounded like they were waiting to be taken to the ship)
I didn’t find it the least bit offensive. It’s no worse than looking at a beef carcass or some roadkill. Or the cling-wrapped steaks on polystyrene trays at the supermarket (where do you think they come from?)
As I predicted, the sum total of the complaint here is “blood! ew!” – as it always is, with these sort of complaints.
As for who eats seal meat – why is it any of my (or your) business?
When in rome…
#6..
Do you know how cows are killed in slaughter houses everyday?
To stay on topic, She did it because she wanted to show respect to the community in Inuit’s tradition. Imagine if she turned it down and gave a disgusting look to the people there when she was presented the food?
The blogsphere has totally taken this out of context. Some news reports called her the Sarah Palin of Canada…
“I intend to eat any animal protein I prefer as long it’s not an endangered species.”
Would the endangered species give you the same consideration.
The hunt in 50’s was about 250,000. Today it’s 8000. Beyond subsistence the Inuit export of traditional products made from seals and other animals is the major source of income.
Canadians have bit of a love/hate relationship with the European Union because they turn a blind eye to international violations of gross overfishing by their own members (Grand Banks especially). Fish aren’t cute and cuddley though.
I think that’s what everyone’s problem with the seal hunt is. It isn’t so much that they’re being killed, it’s that seals are generally regarded as a cute little animal.
Would the outcry be so loud if they were culling the Sea Lion population?
And that video is a joke. All that blood on the ice? I’ve never hunted, but wouldn’t field-dressing a deer or moose result in a similar sight?
#8 – MrMiGu,
And I be that those seals humanely kill all the fish that they are eating.
They are at the very least eating the fish. The same cannot be said of the Magdalene Islanders.
We are culling the exploding seal population because we are competing with them for the same food source. Allowing both species to feed on the fish would create an endagered species, not in the cute and furry seal, but in the fish that they feed on. Is this really any different than a farmer killing a fox that would otherwise feed on its chickens?
Yes. This is also wrong. Soon there will be no other species left. Then we will learn that we depend for our very lives on a functioning biosphere. Perhaps we should exercise a little restraint in our own breeding instead.
#14 – qb,
Where’d you get that 8,000 number?
The real numbers are 200,000 – 300,000 or more each year.
http://tinyurl.com/qfmz8b
I dont disagree with you about controlling our own population.
The seal population is currently not in any threat of endangerment. Infact it has been growing and there are quotas set in place to ensure this.
#17 Sorry, if you include the non-Inuit, yes.
#19 – qb,
I don’t have any issue with the Inuit hunt, other than that we poisoned the seals and whales so badly that the breast milk of Inuit women is now so full of PCBs and mercury that it can literally be classified as hazardous waste.
So, I really only care about the much larger and more wasteful kills in the Magdalenes. I think these are executed far more cruelly and without being used for food.
AFAIK, the Inuit kill with rifles. It’s the fishermen who kill with a large stick with a spike at the end.
“…the Marine Mammal Regulations prohibit the use of the hakapik as the instrument for the initial strike of seals over the age of one year. ”
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/seal-phoque/faq-eng.htm#q6
The hakapik is just used to ensure that the seal is dead.
#21 – MrMiGu,
Reread your own post. They can use them to kill the pups. As soon as they lose their white coat, they’re ripe for the picking.
Watched it. No worse than visiting an abattoir.
I have no issue with the use of meat.
If they finally get the lab grown stuff to work and be inexpensive, I’ll eat it.
I am an omnivore. I will eat meat along with vegetables. Many lifeforms are killed in the harvest of grains and vegetables as well. Who cries for them?
I’ve not seen a single vegan turn down a bowl of grains because some snakes, rats, mice and a vast amount of insects died to make it.
Cursor_
#23 – Cursor_
What exactly does eating meat have to do with killing animals, especially baby animals, for their fur and wasting the meat entirely?
Good lord I bet her Maj is glad she missed that one
I say nuke the seals. Let God sort it out. No wait there are no commie seals….never mind.
Needless slaughter for fur. Just rape everything you can get your hands on for a buck. That’s what makes us human.
And BTW, there would be plenty of fish for the seals if we didn’t overfish them to the brink of extinction first.
What’s more disgusting to eating the bite sized raw heart of an animal is to see it being done in front of children as some sort of proud moment.
I’m curious to know what would be people’s reaction if we replaced seals with even more “popular” animals, let’s say a cute Golden Retriever?
Our culture towards animal rights is full of hipocrisy. Most people who defend seals, whales etc., have no issue with the slaughtering of cattle, pork, and other animals that are very often superior (pigs for example are considered some of the most intelligent animals, more than dogs and cats).
Say what you want about vegetarianism, but at least it has coherent values.