Sealing

Sustainable and essential hunting
Sealing has formed the basis of existence for the population of Greenland for thousands of years – and this is still the case for the population in the majority of settlements and hunting districts in North and East Greenland. It is still a major event when a boy shoots his first seal, and when it happens the whole family gathers for the traditional Greenlandic ‘kaffemik’.

Greenlandic seal hunting has always taken place in a sustainable manner, and seal populations have never been threatened. For sealers the meat from the seals has always been the most important product.

Drying seal skin

However, nothing from the seal goes to waste after it has been captured. The meat is a Greenlandic delicacy and is either eaten or sold, and the skin is used for making clothing or sold to skin tanneries.

Confusion with Canadian sealing
In Greenland there are five species of seal: the common seal, the ringed seal, the hooded seal, the bearded seal, and the harp seal.

Harp seal pups are born off the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland, and it was the slaughter of these white-coated Canadian seal pups that led to huge international protests in the 1980s. A resulting major boycott had fatal consequences for many Greenlandic seal catchers, who were no longer able to make a living from sealing.

Today most of the skins are sold for processing at the Great Greenland tannery in Qaqortoq. Hair from the skin is used for furs, and the skin that remains after removing the hair is used to make items such as the Greenlandic boots known as kamiks. Sealskin products from Greenland are much sought-after, but unfortunately widespread misconceptions still exist with regard to Greenlandic sealing and methods of capture, which primarily take place with a rifle or by using nets placed under the ice. In certain countries the import of sealskin products is prohibited.

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