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A boycott of Canadian seafood products because of seal hunting has attracted support from 42 high-profile US chefs, but certainly not from celebrity chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain.
On Monday, he began tweeting a series of messages asking the chefs who joined the boycott to reconsider their support.
“I’m all for protecting seals, but a total ban dooms the indigenous people above [the] Arctic Circle to death or relocation,” Bourdain wrote in one tweet.
“To hold the entire Canadian seafood industry hostage over sustainable, absolutely necessary tribal practice is ill considered … I completely understand well meaning intentions of good hearted chefs who signed this petition. But they are wrong. Visit the Inuit.”
The ‘Chefs for Seals’ campaign was launched by the Humane Society of the United States in 2005. According to Kathryn Kullberg, the group’s director of wildlife protection, the boycott is not aimed at Inuit, but at an inhumane commercial industry.
“The dead seals go on the very same boats used to catch seafood the rest of the year, so it is the same exact industry and there’s a very clear link,” she told CBC News.
She said that despite Bourdain’s claims, the boycott efforts are gaining ground.
An informal poll by the CBC revealed that 74.1 % of readers approve Bourdain’s criticisms. “It’s not often we hear from personalities on that side of the debate”, they said.
With files from CBC.
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In 2006, Anthony Bourdain travelled to an Inuit community and joined in a hunt and feast of raw seal with a family in Quebec.
