Quote Originally Posted by Jock Scot View Post
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.