Possible loophole to EU seal skin ban...

[ShaunMaxwell]

Ran across this article this morning...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-sealskin.html

[macwilkin]

Ran across this article this morning...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-sealskin.html

Someone should forward this along to US Customs.

T.

[artificer]

I'm going to have to look into this... Thanks Shaun!

edit: apparently the "Marine Mammals Act" forbids import to the US of Canadian Inuit seal skins. I'm going to see if I can find an Alaskan Inuit vendor... you can't import what's already here

[Jock Scot]

I can't say that I have given any real thought where the skins have come from, but somehow I always thought that the seal skins used for sporrans were actually provided by the Eskimos for the recent past, say 50 years. Historically I can see that Scots seal skins would have been and were used. So where do(did) the seal skins used for sporrans by Scots sporran makers of modern times come from?

[Lyle1]

I can't say that I have given any real thought where the skins have come from, but somehow I always thought that the seal skins used for sporrans were actually provided by the Eskimos for the not so recent past. Historically I can see that Scots seal skins would have been and were used. So where do(did) the seal skins used for sporran by Scots sporran makers of modern times come from?

Harvesting seal pelts was a very lucrative commercial business on a scale that Eskimos could not have managed as a "traditional" activity.

Quite a few years ago, public opposition to commercial hunting of seal pelts was generated by the showing of films of commercial hunters clubbing seal pups to death while the pups were still too young and slow to escape. The film was quite bloody and graphic with audio of both the seal pups crying in panic and the thump of the clubs as they were beaten to death. I think in the film and anti-seal skin campaigns the pups were referred to as "baby seals." The campaign generated a lot of support for banning the practice.

[skauwt]

i think this is a great idea
the Yupik and Inuit people are going to hunt seals whether the western countrys ban it or not so it makes perfect sense for them to use this by-product of there food hunting techniques and sell it to a country that will actually cherish the quality and use the material rather than go to waste

i still don't get why there's all the fuss with seals considering we eat animals that have been treated far worse than a some seals

[ThistleDown]

i think this is a great idea
the Yupik and Inuit people are going to hunt seals whether the western countrys ban it or not so it makes perfect sense for them to use this by-product of there food hunting techniques and sell it to a country that will actually cherish the quality and use the material rather than go to waste

i still don't get why there's all the fuss with seals considering we eat animals that have been treated far worse than a some seals

It is strange, isn't it? Those who successfully protested the harvesting of "baby seals" did not next truck off to an abattoir to protest the hammer-blows to cows, or the traditional neck-wring for poultry or the in-the-hold death by suffocation of fish.

There's nane sae weird as folk.

Seals continue to be harvested in northern Canada for food, pelts and as a means to keep the seal population down and the fish population healthy. Nothing is wasted by the Inuit people. If there is no market for skins outwith Canada as many as possible will still be used for local clothing, everyone in the country will have a sealskin sporran (turn green, the rest of you) and whatever is left will be air-dried and burned as fuel.

Rex

[NewGuise]

Quite a few years ago, public opposition to commercial hunting of seal pelts was generated by the showing of films of commercial hunters clubbing seal pups to death ....

The result of that was a ban within Canada on the killing of "whitecoats" and "bluebacks" - that is, baby seals. Yet those films and pictures are still shown, and many still think that seal pups are still being killed. I've known folks who would happily dine on veal and fois gras but object to sporrans made from sealskin.

[Bugbear]

The other day I happen to read, Peter Freuchen's Book of the Eskimos, by Peter Freuchen, intro and ed. by Dagmar Freuchen (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, reprn., 1961). Freuchen reports that seal skins are used for quite a few things, such as, boots, boats, windows, hoods, mittens, water buckets, summer coats and probably a whole bunch of things I don't recall right off. Bear and fox fur are also reported to be used as clothing, along with bird skin shirts, feathers on the inside. Looks like hare skin socks are worn under the seal skin boots. He does point out the seal fur coat is not as warm as the fox fur coat, and is usually worn in the summer. The clothing descriptions are mostly around page 26-27 in this reprint.

Fascinating book...