The Canadian Governor General doesn't just hunt animals in her spare time, and drape the spoils over the sofa in her office. No, Michaelle Jean guts harp seals with her bare hands and devours their hearts as part of a ceremony of political solidarity with seal hunters:
Jean knelt above a pair of carcasses and used a traditional blade to slice the meat off the skin.
After repeated, vigorous cuts through the flesh the Queen's representative turned to the woman beside her and asked enthusiastically: "Could I try the heart?"
Within seconds Jean was holding a crimson chuck of seal-ticker, she tucked it into her mouth, swallowed it, and turned to her daughter to say it tasted good.
Afterward Jean grabbed a tissue to wipe her blood-soaked fingers, and explained her gesture of solidarity with the region's Inuit hunters.
This is Michaelle Jean, at right:
The European Union recently voted to ban seal products at the urging of animal-rights groups, despite the fact that seal populations are thriving, not even the World Wildlife Fund opposes the Canadian seal hunt, and has in the past deemed the methods of hunting humane when performed correctly. The Economist pegged Europe's opposition to seal hunting as mostly emotional, and hypocritical given Europe's other animal industries:
Four years ago the WWF, an environmental organisation, commissioned an independent vet's report which concluded that seal clubbing is not cruel if it is properly done by competent and trained professionals. The report judged that the Canadian hunt was professional and highly regulated. And the vets said that popular horror of the seal hunt seemed to be based largely on emotion and on images that are difficult even for experienced observers to interpret.
By the grim standards of Europe's farrowing sheds, millions of seals enjoy a blissful life fishing and breeding on the Canadian ice...A few seals are killed to protect fish, others as a source of blubber or food. Most are indeed killed for their fur. That may not be to everyone's taste, but it is hardly unEuropean. Europe's fur farms produce over 30m mink and fox pelts a year. Every four or five days Europe kills more animals for their fur than the entire annual Canadian hunt does in a year. Seal hunting sounds unfair; but Europeans are reluctant to ban the hunting of similarly defenceless game birds, deer or wild boar.
The ban constitutes a loss of $5.5 million in exports to Europe.
