Canadian government to fund project to offer seal meat at grocery stores

Canada is planning to spend $500,000 on a project that will offer seal meat in groceries stories in Canada and overseas next year.

According to GlobalNews.ca, Ottawa, Newfoundland and Labrador will participate.

The plan is for a broad campaign starting next year to offer frozen and vacuum-packed seal meat for wholesale and in ‘niche market’ stores in Canada and other countries, the report said.

“We feel very confident that this is going to be the future of the industry," Shannon Lewis, of the Atlantic Seal Development Association, said.

Lewis said gray, hooded and harp seal meat can be highly nutritious.

“We feel it’s a product the world needs to recognize and be educated on," he said.

Rebecca Aldworth, executive director of Humane Society International Canada, told GlobalNews.ca that public funding to promote commercial seal products is a bad idea.

“It’s a completely futile attempt to invest taxpayers’ money in propping up a dead industry,” she said. “We know that global markets for seal products are closing, they’re not opening."

Countries with bans on imported seal products include the U.S., Mexico, Russia and Taiwan.

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