Tag Archives: Dion Dakins
Sealing industry protests lack of talks on EU ban at summit in N.L.
Implemented by the EU in 2009, the trade ban on seal products, based on ethical concerns, deprived thousands of seal hunters in Eastern Canada of their most important market. The sealing industry, whose biggest footprint is in Nunavut and Newfoundland and Labrador, has never recovered. Gil Thériault, the head of the association representing Quebec’s seal hunters, said planning two days of bilateral meetings in Newfoundland and Labrador, “the very place Ottawa abandoned,” and not bringing up the seal products ban “sends a message of complete disregard for people in coastal communities.” According to groups representing seal hunters and processors, the EU embargo is the result of an extremely effective lobbying campaign from animal-rights groups, who depicted the hunt as an inhumane slaughter. Sealers say that’s false and that the hunt is sustainable and conducted without cruelty. >>click to read<< 10:53
Fishers suffering from seal boom, Senate committee hears in Newfoundland and Labrador
The Canadian sealing and fishing industries have been left to sink or swim while booming seal populations on the Atlantic Canada coast deplete fish stocks and disrupt marine ecosystems, the Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans heard on a recent fact-finding mission. The committee took its in-depth study on the effects of Canada’s seal populations to Newfoundland and Labrador from September 11 to 13, 2023. Fact-finding activities in Elliston, South Dildo, Port de Grave and St. John’s, capped off by day-long public hearings in the provincial capital, provided senators with a detailed picture of the province’s rich history with the seal fishery and the serious challenges domestic sealers and fishers are facing today. >>>click to read<< 11:46
Q&A – Dion Dakins on the hunting and eating of seal in Canada
Seal: Too Cute to Eat? That’s the name of a panel that took place at the Terroir culinary summit late last month in Toronto, and a question that makes Dion Dakins chuckle. Dakins is the chief executive of Carino Processing Ltd. in Newfoundland, which processed 55,000 animals for meat, oil and hides in the past sealing season. For him, the question gets to the core of the seal debate. He believes hunting seal is sustainable, humane and a necessary fisheries ecomanagement tool. Opposing him are animal-rights groups (most of them based outside Canada) that have spun the “cute” element into a disproportionate fundraising tool.,,, You say if seals aren’t harvested, they’ll have to be culled. Can you explain? click here to read the story 09:29
