This year is Canada’s sesquicentennial (try saying that quickly three times, or even once!) celebration. People, organizations, and businesses are signaling the year-long event in many ways; Parks Canada, for example, is making 2017 Parks Canada Discovery Passes free to all Canadians, providing access to national parks, historic sites and marine conservation areas all year.
One Vancouver restaurant, Edible Canada, already known for highlighting Canadian cuisine, is paying special attention to foods that are uniquely significant within Canada for this year’s special anniversary, and they don’t seem shy about raising debate. They have decided to put seal on their menu, citing its historical and cultural significance and its sustainability as a food source.
Some, however, including the Vancouver Humane Society, have expressed their opposition to the restaurant’s move, calling on the public to ask the restaurant to change their menu.
People have many reasons for the choices they make about the foods they consume: nutritional value; health; moral concerns; beliefs connected to Faith; cost & availability; environmental impact; sustainability; concerns about practices in agriculture and animal husbandry, concerns about over-processing and even fraud.
We are likely to make different food choices for ourselves for different reasons. Maybe we can’t (and maybe we shouldn’t) make those choices for others. But maybe people mostly make choices only between a set of options that are made easily available to them. Maybe talking about the reasons some folks object to certain menu items while others do not can prompt us to pay some attention to the choices we make and the reasons why. If we listen and if we put some critical thought to a headline-getting topic like this, maybe we can have some productive discussions about other issues too.
Would you order a dish made with harp seal at a restaurant? Should it be on the menu? Your thoughtful ideas are welcome.
I believe that as we eat other foods, and care for other things, enough is enough, as long as we don’t eat or do it too much, as it could be dangerous.
I’m not sure I follow you. Do you mean that since we are able to eat other living things and manage our consumption of them, that is reason to believe that we can also consume seals responsibly? Or are you arguing that we can look to other food sources, so we should not be exploiting seals for food? I’m also interested to know the reasons eating seal could be dangerous.
Thanks for continuing to help our discussion.
In my opinion, I completely oppose to the Canadian Seal Hunt. Not only is it terrible in general, but there are plenty of other points that make it even worse. It will completely affect their population, we can survive without eating or wearing seals and they continue to suffer after their fur has been taken. If the Inuit eat seal that is fine because it is part of their culture. If you think the Canadian Seal Hunt is okay, think again. Killing seals is horrible and should be stopped immediately.
If you have a source reporting on the suffering of seals that you can point out to us, you may have more success convincing those who don’t already agree with you.
I think we should eat seal (harp seal) because, the Canadian government allows it!
also there were no signs of death or sicknesses or whatever, and we’ve ate harp seals for like a lot of years so i don’t see why we can’t eat seals.
I hope the government’s recommended guidelines were based on thoughtful discussion & reliable information. I have no reason to suppose they were not, but I’m not sure everyone who disagrees with you will be convinced merely by the fact that the government allows it.
Thanks for the reply.
i think that its OK because there are so many of them and at the level were at right now we won’t hurt the population of harp seal.
Seals
Seals should not be eaten in restaurants because they are living creatures and they might get extinct. But if you do kill seal you should not just eat it but make a coat or shoes. So you use all of the seal. Instead of just using the meat. I think you should eat seal only if you absolutely need to. Like the Inuit they need to eat seal or they will die. And they also respect the animal. And they use all the the animal not just the meet but the fur and the fat too. So they make coats and shoes so they can
survive.
You take a thoughtful & environmentally friendly position. I wonder whether the leather that gets used to make shoes, belts, jackets, purses, saddles and other products comes from the cattle that are taken to abattoirs. Do you think the answer to that question should change the eating habits of people who eat beef?
I believe that we can eat seal only if the adult give birth then you can kill and eat the adult.Seal can help provide you with warmth, protection, and health.
I am glad you are thinking about conservation. Should we apply the same standard to other critters we use for food?
I think that some people are just over reacting about a restaurant that is serving seal, I think people should just mined their own business because it’s there choice and if they make a bad choices it’s their problem not yours.
I’m not sure I’m convinced by your argument, though you could be right that some people who are strongly opposed to the restaurant’s menu may be over reacting some. Don’t we all have a right (perhaps even a responsibility) to speak out about what we see as wrong in the world (and certainly in our own country)? Won’t thoughtful discussion of issues that matter to people help us engage with each other and base our opinions & actions on well thought-out ideas?
It will be great that they change there menu and I would NEVER eat Seal and i think it SHOULD NOT be on the MENU 🙂
I’m not sure that the restaurant is gong to remove seal from their menu. Will you do something to try to convince them to do that? If you feel strongly about it, you should. It does seem like they are welcoming discussion & debate.
I would never get a dish made with harp seal or any other different seals at a restaurant because I don’t think it should be on the menu first of all, and I think that seals are going to be endanger species.
I’d love to know more about why you think seal should not be a menu item in the first place. Convince me. Based on the reaction from within our class, it doesn’t seem like restaurants are going to be able to sell that many dishes let alone put harp seals at risk of becoming endangered. There may well be other animals that humans regularly harvest for food that are already under threat, including beluga sturgeon and the oceanic white tip shark.
NO I would NOT order a meal that is made with harp seal on the menu.
There for I do NOT think seals should be served on the menu.
Thank You
I believe you feel very strongly about this issue, and I’m glad to see you put your energy into a strong, clear statement. If you could tell us WHY you feel the way you do, you might convince more people to support your position.
I believe that it should be okay if you want to eat seal. I am not on a side but I believe if you want you should be able to, we should not have to be part of a culture to eat seal. if we keep on doing this with more animals. what is going to happen to the food? how are the seals predators going to eat? what will happen to us? if we can not protect the animals in our environment how are we as humans going to live in this type of world. in order for the life cycle to work we need all animals. we can not risk another species
I’m not sure I have your position clearly understood here. You seem to say that it should be OK for a restaurant to serve seal and for people to choose to eat it, no matter their particular cultural background. But you also seem to suggest that if people eat seal in restaurants, the seals & other species in their food web will be at risk, which seems like an argument against serving seal in restaurants. Are you against having seal on the menu or have you not yet decided?
I’m not sure what side I’m really in but here is why I’m against. Seals only give birth to 1 pup a year compared to 10,000 eggs from a fish(only about 10% survives). Also in February 7 my class, well at least my group learned if we hunt to much seal we can affect the food chain. So that are reasons why I’m against also I have other information why I’m not against. Seals are really nutritious also it’s good to try something new like seal. So that’s why I’m neither sides.
I’m glad you are recognising that choosing a side on an issue like this requires weighing many different issues. It also looks like you are drawing on some reading or other information you have. If you share those sources with us, it might help us take a closer look at the points you’ve raised and become better informed about our own positions.
I think seal should not be eaten as a treat. it should be not eaten at all because, eventually there wont be anything else in the sea. seal is just a starting point in to sea extinction. The seal’s will not be needed in a city person diet. we have many other things that have more nutrients then seal. for example, beef, has no more or less nutrients than seal. I personally think it tastes better to.
I (along with many others) would agree with you that there is no reason we have to eat seal (certainly not people living in Canada’s urban areas). Many of those same folks could argue that there is even less reason to eat beef since there is research to show that the production of beef is more costly to the environment than any other animal raised for food. I am also confused by your statements that beef is at the same time MORE nutritious than seal and also NO MORE OR LESS nutritious than seal.
I think we should eat seals because it is part of some peoples food chain and my opinion is we should not eat seals because I feel bad for the seals so I am on the yes side and the no side.
I understand that weighing all the evidence and forming an opinion is a challenge. Where could you turn to get an even better understanding of the issue that might help? Perhaps would it help to think more about your own food choices and your reasons for them. I suspect many people live day to day without necessarily thinking very critically about what they choose to eat. Maybe a tricky controversy like this can prompt more of us to live (and eat) more intentionally.
seals should not be eaten at restaurants because without the males and females there would be no more seals you would be break the food chain and the animals that eat seals could die too
I think everyone who has commented here would agree with you about wanting to protect the seal population. Is there a particular danger seals would face if a restaurant (or even a few) put seal on the menu?
I don’t suggest adding harp seals in restaurants because there population will start to decrease and there will be a higher chance of harp seals becoming extinct.
What are the reasons behind your fears for the seal population. I don’t think anyone wants to put them at risk, but if we can manage the resource, why would some harvesting not be OK?
I can’t find exact figures for the harp seal population, however recent estimates are: 4.0 – 6.4 million in the northwest Atlantic population, 300,000 in the east Greenland population, and 1.2 million in the White Sea population. That’s not what i’d call endangered. I think that if you eat any meat that you should be able to eat seal. Seal is Canadian cuisine, it should be sold at Edible Canada
Thank you for a carefully and thoughtfully crafted response. (Do tell us where you found the figures you did cite though.)
i think that its not OK because they will be eventually endangered.
they were not to be eat tin.
It might be interesting to look at different animals humans have used as food resources and what has happened to their populations over time. Could it be that all species we eat are destined to eventually become endangered? If not, then there must be something we can (and perhaps already do) do to protect species that provided us with food. If so, if we can be sure of our ability to protect them, would you be open to the idea of using seals for food?
I wouldn’t order seal at a restaurant but maybe others would. I think that its okay for us to eat seal and for it to be on the menu because it is part of other animals and people food chain. Some people will think that we shouldn’t eat seal because they are cute but what about chickens, cows,and pigs,etc. Like are they not cute cause some people seem to think that because they aren’t cute it’s fine to eat them. And this is what i think about people eating seal.
I think I agree with you that cuteness is not a strong argument against using a particular animal for food. I don’t think there is a consistent or reliable way to measure such a trait, and it seems more than a little arbitrary (which is what I think you were trying to show with your examples). What might be a stronger reason? Is there any way someone could convince you to try a seal menu item?
I think that it’s okay to eat seals because it’s to try new type of food but the government lets people harvest 400,000 a year!I think that the government should still let people eat seals but only let people harvest 50,000 seals only.
I suspect the chef at Edible Canada might agree with you about the value of creating the opportunity for people to try something that is both new to them and part of a unique cultural tradition for some people in Canada. I also wonder why you think the seal harvest should be reduced.