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The Canadian government is having similar thoughts after four years of hostile publicity and occasional exaggerations about the hunt. In 1964, a Quebec TV crew filmed it to glorify the hardy Newfoundland swilers; the finished product horrified Canadians instead (although swilers angrily maintain that scenes of seals being skinned alive were staged by the TV men). Another film is being shown around the world by a determined Canadian S.P.C.A. executive named Brian Davies. It has provoked emotional stories in the world press, and something close to an international crusade to halt the hunt. Angry letters and petitions flood Ottawa, and demonstrators have besieged Canadian embassies and consulates. Among the protesters are Americans obviously unaware that the U.S. sanctions hunters who annually club or shoot 120,000 seals in the Pribiloff Islands of Alaska. Boycotts have seriously affected sales of all varieties of seal furs, and sealskin prices. The income of Canadian Eskimos, who depend on pelt sales for a livelihood, has dropped in five years from $750,000 to $95,000.
Deer Hunting Is Worse. Without success, Canadian government officials try to rebut the more emotional charges. They point out that the publicity, ironically, deals only with the gulf hunt, which is now closely patrolled and more humane than it was before 1965. Thirty inspectors were on the floes this year; they checked carcasses for skull fractures (meaning instant death, hence no skinning alive), shooed away unlicensed hunters and tallied the kill. The resulting hunt, says Fisheries Minister Jack Davis, is "probably more humane than most deer hunting." But no newsmen seem to go to the front, where Canadian swilers complain that their Norwegian competitors are still hooking pups with gaffs and skinning them alive. Nor is the annual gulf hunt, contrary to accusations, decimating the herd (although the limitless kill on the front is). Yet no matter how many explanations they make, Canadian officials are unable to quell the uproar for an elemental reason. Says one: "If we could find a way to make pup seals look like alligators, our problems would be over."
Before long, if other income can be found for impoverished hunters, Canada may turn the St. Lawrence Gulf into a seal sanctuary. Even the grizzled swilers should be relieved. They do not particularly enjoy the annual bloodbath themselves. Newfoundlanders have odd names for almost everything; a spring storm is "Sheila's brush," strong tea is "switchel" and floating ice is variously described as "growlers," "bergy hits" and "dumpers." But where biologists clinically refer to female seals as cows, the craggy Newfoundlanders never do. To them, they are always "mothers."