As the backlash against the Canadian seal hunt continues to grow, Gail Shea, the Fisheries Minister, is in Beijing this week promoting seal meat, fur and even hearts.
Citing cruel hunting practices, the European Union in May voted to ban the import of seal products. The ban will take effect in August of next year. In the meantime, Canada is focusing on market diversification — namely, establishing new trade opportunities with China.
"The EU was a small market for Canada. Of course, we're disappointed in their actions," Ms. Shea said by telephone from China today. "That being said, there are many other markets out there. That's what we're doing in China. We're trying to expand on the market that's here."
Canada's seal exports to China are limited to pelts and oil capsules, which Ms. Shea calls an "excellent source of omega-3." To open the Chinese market to other seal products, like meat and potentially seal heart valves — which research indicates could be used for transplant into humans — the Canada must build a market from the ground up.
Today Ms. Shea the 36th China Fur & Leather Products Fair, The Fisheries Minister said she has not observed any reticence about consuming seal products, but stressed Canada will also have to provide guidance on how to use seal meat.
"We are going to have to create a market and we've talked to the importers about that," Ms. Shea told a conference call.
What she has encountered in China are misconceptions that the Canadian seal industry is illegal.
"It certainly is not illegal," Ms. Shea said.
On the same day that Ms. Shea was touting the high protein in seal meat and lauded the "impressive" seal fur fashions of Canadian designers, Reuters released revealing numbers on China's fur trade. Looks like its own animal offerings are suffering on the international market. China, the second-largest fur producer after Europe, has halved its mink production. Fox, meanwhile, is down by three-quarters during the same period.
In China, Reuters notes, fur is "less taboo and more of a novelty."
—Mary Vallis, National Post
Photo: A Harp seal pup lays on an ice floe March 31, 2008 in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence near Charlottetown, P.E.I. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
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