To answer your question, Mr. Byrne, there are about 700 licences, on average, issued per year. Out of those, we qualify about 350 as commercially active; they earn a significant part of their annual salary from sealing. There are no accurate numbers on this, but this estimate is fairly good, I think. The other 300-odd sealers we could qualify as people who will go when the seals are very close or accessible. The Newfoundlanders, I think, have a good expression for it: they call it “for the pot”. A lot of people do eat seal here, and some will get a licence only to harvest seals for personal use, but we figure there are about 350 who are commercially active. The landed value is about $1.5 million.
On November 8th, 2006. See this statement in context.