Dawn of a New Canada

Snowflake Furs: Proudly Archaic

Interview with Megan Halprin, co-owner of Snowflake Furs:

Megan Halprin

(What’s funny is that Megan wouldn’t give me her name and wanted to be referred to as “someone from Snowflake”. Why doesn’t Megan want to stand behind her views?)

This is a summary of Megan Halprin’s answers, because after initially agreeing to be on camera she then refused. Megan’s feathers were clearly ruffled when I entered the store as she tried to identify who I was. She asked who I was with and I replied that I was there as an individual (my pins and stickers barely concealed). She asked what my opinion was on the protest and I said it didn’t matter because I was here to collect her opinions – here they are:

• What is your opinion on the protesting happening outside your store right now? I think it’s uncalled for and hypocritical. Fur is no different than leather or silk. They are targeting us when many other retailers sell animal products and they themselves are not entirely free of using any animal products.
• Why do you think there is such a backlash against fur over other animal-derived clothing? Because people don’t have cows, goats, and sheep as pets. They see the small, furry animals as cuter, more relatable.
• Have the protesters had any negative impact on your relationship with Fairmont Hotels? No. They have had no media attention. We have been with Fairmont for thirty years.
• Except for me. No offense, but you’re not really media.
• Right. I’m small press, but several hundred people read this blog (update* over 1000 a day)
  
• Do you wear fur? Yes. I don’t think we’re doing anything wrong. We’re not trying to cover up what we’re selling (though Snowflake no longer displays any fur in their windows). We don’t say we’re selling fake fur and have it mixed with real fur. We don’t sell dog fur, or fur from endangered species, or seal fur.
  
• Would you consider selling seal fur? Seal fur has been worn in this country for a long time. When the native cultures hunt it they use the entire animal.
• Are you aware that in Canada’s commercial seal hunt, where 300 000 seals are killed every year, the seals are killed for their skins and then simply discarded? That’s called culling. If they didn’t do this, the marine life would be off balance.
• The protests have been going on for along time now. Are they affecting you? I just think that people have the right to make up their own minds. Everyone has the right to choose for themselves. If they want to wear fur and shop here, that’s their decision. It’s their right to make their own choice.
• But then (the protesters) also have the right to stand in the street and protest, right? They don’t have the right to yell at people and berate our store. The way they’re acting is harassment.
• I think the reason they’re behaving in a harassing fashion is because they feel that the animals are being subjected to even more harassing practices. How would you feel if people kept harassing you at work, calling and hanging up and trying to ruin your business?
• I think if I was working in a store in which I may have overlooked something about the product I was selling, I might be open to what the callers were trying to say. I haven’t overlooked anything. I don’t think it’s okay to call a person’s store and hang up, or affect the business of Griffin’s Restaurant beside us – they don’t have anything to do with this. (The Shac Model in action!) People have the right to get information, but the protesters are distorting the facts. They don’t know who our suppliers are. They don’t know where our fur comes from.
• I think they’re trying to express that all fur production is inhumane…

(I decided to end the interview here.)

Some self-insight from Snowflake:

“What will the future bring? Rokie is trying to spend less and less time in the office and is hoping to leave more and more of the day-to-day running of the company to the Head Office Team. She is still President and CEO, and continues to hold the overall vision of the company. Megan Halprin sits in the chair as CFO. With the support of our suppliers, agents, and staff we will continue to grow and thrive. Simply the best in great Canadian design has been our catch phrase for over a decade. We will continue to grow into it.”

So the questions become: Who are Snowflake’s suppliers? Who are its agents? Its staff? And would these people take their business elsewhere if they were persistently faced with the stress of being reminded of the moral implications behind the products they are selling?

The Moral Progress Of A Nation

…can be determined by the way it treats its animals”

Mahatma Gandhi

The Canadian Seal Hunt

Canada’s annual commercial seal hunt is the largest slaughter of marine mammals on the planet. 275,000 will be killed this spring.

Isn’t it illegal to kill baby seals now?

Nope. It’s only illegal to kill baby seals under the age of 11 days old, when they are known as “whitecoats”. At 12 days of age or so, the pups begin to lose their white fur – like the one in the photo to the right, who has shed the white fur on the lower half of its body – and it becomes legal to kill them. For the last ten years or so, 95% of the seals killed during the commercial hunt have been “beaters”–seals between 12 days and 3 months old. Last year in 2007, the percentage was 98%. Sealers prefer to kill these young seals because their pelts fetch the highest prices.

Do native people depend on the hunt to survive?

Not at all. There are no Inuit involved in the commercial seal hunt. In fact, the species of seal targeted during the hunt is known as the harp seal. About 325,000 are killed every March and April. The Inuit favour adult ring seals, and kill only about 10,000 annually.

A letter from Arnaituk M. Tarkirk, an Inuit man from Kuujjuak, Quebec:

We have been hearing all about the European vote to ban the importation of seal products from the so-called seal hunt.

I am an Inuk and I would like to say what I think about this.

Peter Ittinuur, Northwest Territory MP, has been saying that this vote will put a lot of Inuit on welfare. This is stupid. The money from the hunt goes to Norway mostly and has nothing to do with the Inuit.

We are skillful hunters who hunt adult animals for food, That is not the same as bashing a pup, which can’t move, over the head.

In fact, if the seal hunt stopped, we would benefit the most. There would be 180,000 more seals left for us to eat when they are a few years older, and also people would not have such an aversion to sealskin products as they have after seeing the way they kill the pups, so craft work made with adult seals would be more popular.

The Hudson Bay Company and the government are just using the Inuit to further their own purposes. I am surprised Peter Ittinuur, whom I know, could allow himself to be used like that. I know people who are against the seal hunt, and they are not against the Inuit.

I am an Inuk, and I oppose the seal hunt.

The Canadian government maintains that the hunt is humane. Is this true?

No. Seals are smashed over the head with a tool known as the hakapik (a club with a large metal spike attached) or shot with a rifle. The animals are then dragged across the ice and skinned, often while still alive. Sealers are competing for a limited number of seals in a limited amount of time, so they work quickly to get as many pelts as they can.

A study conducted in 2001 by an independent team of scientists concluded that the recommended regulations for humane hunting and killing were being neither enforced nor followed, and that 42 percent of seals were being skinned alive.

As of 2008, the Canadian government has attempted to stave off threats of a European Union ban on seal products by presenting a “new” set of rules meant to ensure a humane death:

1. Stun – render seal unconscious
2. Check – test blinking reflex to ensure seals are irreversibly unconscious
3. Bleed – cut main artery to ensure seal bleeds out

Numbers 1 and 2 have long been “recommended regulations” of the Canadian government, and as indicated previously, they are neither enforced nor applied by the majority of sealers. Additionally, it is still legal to shoot seals in the water, where none of these three rules can be followed.

The sealers hit five, six, seven, sometimes up to eight or nine seals in a row and then take their time, going back and skinning and bleeding out the seals. Eventually they get to the first seal they might have hit. That period can last up to six to 10 minutes. It’s terrible. Some of the scenes we have seen are of immense cruelty. Seals screaming, wiggling round in pain and bleeding, and crying out.

Is the seal hunt sustainable?

No, and it’s getting less sustainable as time goes on due to global warming. Over the past 10 years, between half and two-thirds of seal pups have been slaughtered by commercial sealers. The ice cover is rapidly disappearing, and many pups do not learn to swim before the ice melts beneath them. In 2007, there was a nearly 100% mortality rate. Government scientists have estimated this year’s replacement yield (the number of seals that can be killed while still allowing the species to maintain its population) at 165,000, and yet the government has set the total allowable catch at 275,000 seals.

Aren’t the seals eating the cod that Newfoundland fishers rely on to survive?

No. In fact, young cod makes up only 3 percent of the seals’ diet. The majority of their diet actually consists of fish and squid that prey on young cod; therefore, removing the seals from the equation may actually result in more cod disappearing as predatory fish flourish. The currently low cod population is the result of poor management on the part of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Even they admit that the seal hunt has no positive impact on cod population, explaining that the hunt is “…not an attempt to assist in the recovery of groundfish stocks…Seals eat cod, but seals also eat other fish that prey on cod.”

Do my taxes support the seal hunt?

Yes. Over 20 million dollars in government subsidies were provided to the Canadian sealing industry between 1995 and 2001. And while tracking subsidies to the sealing industry is difficult because the information is not public, $400,000 in government subsidies were granted as recently as 2004 to two sealing companies.

The sealers are using the meat, though, right? At least nothing goes to waste.

Actually, most of the seal goes to waste. The fur is sold to high-end retailers like Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, and Prada. Some of the penises are sold as aphrodisiacs in Asia, and the oil is sold as a health supplement. The blubber is sometimes collected, but a 2006 study by Memorial University discovered that 80% of it is simply discarded. Meanwhile, the meat of the seal rots on the ice, as it is generally considered inedible and unfit for human consumption. On its website, the Canadian government admits that “finding a market for seal meat outside of Newfoundland continues to present a major challenge for the sealing industry.”

What would the sealers do for money if the hunt ended?

The people who work as part of the commercial seal hunt are fishers 95% of the year. 90% of the 5000 seal hunters live in Newfoundland; the $12 million that the hunt brings in each year is only one-tenth of 1% of the province’s annual economy, and only one-twentieth of the hunters’ annual income.

Even the sealers admit it isn’t an economical boost. Sealer Desmond Hunt is quoted as saying, “We all go out for the love of it rather than the money, which isn’t there anymore.”

In fact, due to massive boycotts of Newfoundland and Canadian seafood worldwide, ending the hunt could only increase profits in the area. According to 2006 reports, Canadian snow crab imports to the United States have dropped by $160 million due to the Canadian seafood boycott – this is more than ten times the money the seal hunt brings in.

“HSUS has to date persuaded almost 3,600 U.S. businesses to participate, including heavy hitters Publix (annual sales $24-billion), Whole Foods ($7-billion), WinCo Foods, Lowe’s Foods, Harris Teeter ($3-billion each) and smaller, seafood-driven ones like Legal Sea Foods ($400-million). Sealing creates less than 1% of the value of the sealing provinces’ fishery. Sacrifice 99% for the sake of 1%. Now there’s a business plan!”–Jeff White.

Are there sustainable AND profitable alternatives to the seal hunt?

Yes. At the rate that seals are being killed, there won’t be enough left to hunt in a few years. It is far more sustainable to explore ecotourism as an attraction for the area.

Since Canada banned commercial whale hunting in the 1970′s, the whale-watching industry has grown considerably and is now worth more than the seal hunt.

“Years ago, the Canadian government successfully turned its commercial whale hunt into a multimillion-dollar whale-watching industry, and there is absolutely no reason the government cannot do the same with seals,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the HSUS. “By continuing this appalling and inhumane hunt, the government is turning what should be an economic asset — the world’s largest migration of these highly charismatic marine mammals — into a liability. The new economies of the major nations of the world will be built around sustainable and humane practices, not the reckless exploitation of wildlife and natural resources.”

*Taken with love from www.liberationbc.org!