Dion Dakins, director of NuTan Furs, said the seal industry won a victory in the European court of justice Thursday.
His company is among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit that saw a temporary injunction put in place to stop the ban on Canadian seal products from entering the European Union. The Fur Institute of Canada, which Dakins also sits on, was also part of the suit along with the Canadian Seal marketing Group, of which he’s also a director.
The Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, an organization which represents Canada’s 53,000 Inuit, is also a plaintiff in the suit.
Dakins said the legal arguments in the suit are very complex and not easily understood in plain terms.
Meanwhile, he said the Canadian government is bringing a challenge to the World Trade Organization saying the European Union doesn’t have the authority to enforce such a ban.
His company, based in Catalina, uses the skin, oil and meat from the seal, so a ban would directly affect his company.
“Because of the ban, there’s a growing negative stigma often associated with our product,” Dakins said.
“To overturn this legislation would have immediate payback as to how the world views our product.
“Outside of that the European Union is the world’s largest market for Omega-3 products. Opening up availability to that market is certainly a benefit to us because we see an opportunity to market our product in that growing market.”
He said the people who observe and protest the seal hunt wouldn’t be allowed near the abattoirs of the world where the same procedure is followed with other animals. He said seals are stunned, checked and bled out before they’re skinned and butchered, the same as any humane slaughterhouse.
“The death and cleaning process of any animal is never pretty,” he said.
Mark Small, of Wild Cove, wasn’t jumping for joy when the European court granted an injunction against the ban on seal products.
“I’m not shouting for joy or anything,” Small said. “It’s a battle and we’re fighting a major battle with the animal rights people and people who don’t understand the coastal people of Eastern Canada.”
The president of the Northeast Coast Sealers Co-operative was happy about the decision because it gives the sealing industry a chance to build its case that the products of the hunt should be legal for sale in Europe.
He feels it’s a legitimate hunt carried out wisely.
“This whole thing on the seal ban, I don’t think it was done on scientific facts,” Small said. “Over the years the issue of the seal hunt in Europe has become very emotional. I think they made their decision on emotional grounds.
“I think now the people in Eastern Canada and parts of the world where there’s major populations of seals, everybody’s beginning to understand if you don’t harvest seals they become a pest and you have to go out and kill them off.”
He’s not sure any animal should be hunted merely because it’s a pest, but with the Canadian hunt the animal is used.
The impact of seals on the ocean’s fish stocks should be considered, too. The decision to ban seals may also have unintended consequences.
“It sets a precedent for other countries that may be legitimately harvesting nature. It doesn’t stop with seals. Those people won’t stop with the seal hunt. They’ll go on to farmers and fur bearers around the world. They’ll come after that and other people’s livelihoods will be affected.”
