warning Hi, we've moved to USCANNENBERGMEDIA.COM. Visit us there!

Neon Tommy - Annenberg digital news

Canadian Inuit Retaliates Ellen DeGeneres With “#Sealfie”

Taiu Kunimoto |
March 29, 2014 | 12:56 p.m. PDT

Executive Producer

Arnaquq-Baril dresses in sealskin clothing in her #sealfie (Twitter/@Alethea_Aggiuq)
Arnaquq-Baril dresses in sealskin clothing in her #sealfie (Twitter/@Alethea_Aggiuq)
Nearly a month has passed since Ellen DeGeneres took her Oscar selfie to raise $1.5 million for the Humane Society of the United States which protests seal hunting. But DeGeneres faced protests of her own when Canadian Inuits took and posted selfies on social media in which they dressed in sealskin clothing under #sealfie.

“The days of a free-for-all unregulated seal hunt endangering the population are long gone,” Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, an Inuit native, wrote on her letter to The Ellen Show. “You have the power/ability to not just be another beautiful, blonde celebrity to crush an aboriginal people and run.”

She also tweeted “I am an Inuit seal-meat eater, and my fur is ethical.”

Since 1987, following the Minister of Fishers and Oceans’ prohibition of commercial hunting of young hooded seals, Inuits have claimed that fewer seals are killed in unethical manners. This prohibition, along with poor ice formation in recent years, seals are now predominantly hunted using rifles rather than hakapiks—tools used to crush a seal’s skull without damaging its pelt that have been criticized for causing painful deaths.

Furthermore, the Inuit community argues that more than one-third of households in the region of Nunavut suffer from food insecurity, thus making seal hunting an inevitable option to ease the region’s shortage of food. 

Seal meat and seal fur have long been regarded as daily necessities among the Inuit natives in Canada. Traditionally the seal’s flesh is eaten, its fur is used for clothes, and its fat is used as fuel. The seal industry is regarded an integral part of Inuit cultural heritage as well as a viable source of income for the local community.

“My uncle placed some snow in the seal’s mouth when it was dead, so its soul would not be thirsty,” Sandi Vincent, a girl who has been involved in seal hunting since the age of 15, wrote as the caption of her #sealfie. “If there is one word to describe seal hunting, I would suggest respectful.”

DeGeneres’ website, on the other hand, regards the seal hunting practice in Canada as “one of the most atrocious and inhumane acts against animals allowed by any government.”

DeGeneres has yet to respond to #sealfie protests from the Inuits, who are accusing the celebrity of threatening the indigenous Canadians’ cultural heritage.

Follow Executive Producer Taiu Kunimoto on Twitter.



 

Buzz

Craig Gillespie directed this true story about "the most daring rescue mission in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard.”

Watch USC Annenberg Media's live State of the Union recap and analysis here.

 
ntrandomness