Seals, Stigma, and Survival: An Interview with Danita Catherine Burke

Scroll this

Earlier this year, Dr. Danita Catherine Burke shared a research post with NiCHE discussing the Seals, Stigma and Survival Project. We wanted to know more about this project and about Danita’s research. Learn more in the interview below:

Could you tell readers a little about yourself and your research?

My name is Danita Catherine Burke. I’m the principal investigator of the project Seals, Stigma and Survival and a senior research fellow associated with the University of Southern Denmark. My research at the moment focuses on the legacy of anti-sealing campaigning, specifically environmental and animal rights activism in the Circumpolar North and the issues of cultural violence associated with that activism. Previously I’ve done work on diplomacy in the Arctic Council, the evolution of Canada’s relationship with the idea of the North and Arctic security.

Danita Burke

What is the Seals, Stigma and Survival project?

Our project aims to explore solutions to the stigma associated with seal products, seal hunting and sealers in the EU and renew debate about the current status of the EU seal product ban.

What first drew you to study stigma around sealing and sealing communities? Do you have any personal connection that has shaped your perspective on this topic?

I’m from rural Newfoundland. This is a subject that I grew up with, the harm and trauma cascading from years of anti-sealing activism, media coverage and ill-informed celebrity endorsements and policy-making. I’ve been doing work on this subject since I was 13 years old.

Why have you chosen to frame sealing debates through the concept of stigma rather than only economics or conservation?

For decades, sealing and fisheries advocates have tried to counter anti-sealing campaigns by presenting facts about sealing’s economic importance to fishing communities and the ecological impacts of growing seal populations on marine ecosystems and fish stocks. However, this information has largely failed to reach or persuade the broader public. Activists have been highly effective in using emotional narratives that encourage people to dismiss local traditional ecological knowledge and those who hold it, portraying them as uneducated, unscientific, and motivated by self-interest. Ultimately, the debate became a contest of facts versus emotions, with emotions prevailing. This dynamic entrenched strong stigma against sealing, seal products, and seal hunters, prompting a shift toward addressing the seal-related issues through a stigma-focused lens.

Erik Kielsen and Lena Marie Nilsson-Arctic Forum March 2026. Photo courtesy of D. Burke.

What types of sources have been most important for this project?

The project’s primary data collection on interviews. We had opportunities to speak seal hunters, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, who are key holders of traditional ecological and fishing knowledge from across the Circumpolar North. In addition to these practitioners, the research team consulted leading scientists, researchers, civil servants, industry representatives, and advocates. Although the study focuses mainly on the Nordic region, it also includes Canada because Northeastern Canada was the focal point of anti-sealing activism during the mid- to late twentieth century and images and narratives from that era continue to dominate public discourse, activism and messaging about seals, sealers and sealing. I also completed archival research conducted in March 2025 at the Laurier Archives at the University of Waterloo, focusing on the Canadian North and environmental activism, further informed the project. This work was supported by a Joan Mitchell Travel Award.

What communities have participated in this research?

Many of our interviews were not community specific in terms of towns but with sealers and sealer representatives for broader communities such as sealers in Sweden, Finland, Åland Islands, Norway, Newfoundland and Labrador, Magdalen Islands and Estonia. But in Kalaallit Nunaat we focused on three communities – Narsaq, Nanortalik and Qaqortoq – in South Greenland.

How have you employed traditional knowledge throughout your study?

Traditional knowledge (TK) lies at the core of many sealers’ relationships with marine environments. Although the project is still in its early stages, the research team is working to ensure that the expertise of TK holders—both those participating in the project and others working to revitalize sealing knowledge, such as hunters in Sweden—is meaningfully incorporated into the research and analysis. With participants’ permission, the project also plans to publish their insights in full later in the project. This approach aims to weave scholarly analysis together with the perspectives of knowledge holders.

Greenpeace in the Circumpolar North cover. Photo courtesy of D. Burke.

Why is it so important to address the historical and ongoing stigma around seal-hunting? How do real-world effects of stigma impact Arctic and coastal communities?

The legacy of anti-sealing campaigns led by activist organizations such as Greenpeace and International Fund for Animal Welfare continues to cause harm. In coastal communities in Newfoundland, for example, people who participate in or publicly support sealing can still face harassment, including death threats and the targeting of their families, though this issue receives little public attention. At the same time, non-Indigenous subsistence sealing traditions have been largely erased from public discourse about sealing’s cultural, economic, and historical significance, weakening traditional ecological knowledge and community relationships with the marine environment.

Communities across parts of the High Arctic, especially Indigenous communities, have been massively impacted by stigma against sealing, too. The cascading social and cultural impacts as well as economic, is enormous. While some acknowledgement is being given to these impacts, things like the EU Inuit/Indigenous Exception for seal product imports is very limited in its current formulation. Indigenous communities continue to have their ability to fully explore sustainable development of seals as part of their economic self-determination limited by regulations and stigmatizing beliefs about seals, sealers and sealing.

What has been your experience navigating research on a topic that is both politically and emotionally charged?

We’re trying to navigate a subject of enduring cultural and economic significance for many, but for which there is a lot of emotions associated with the decades of experiences that peoples, communities and cultures have had to endure in a sensitive and informed way. That also means adjusting at times when feedback from observers, partners and team members indicate that the situation needs it. Having different avenues for feedback has helped us recognize times in which we’ve needed to adjust and to do this in a timely manner. As PI, I’ve taken the approach of being transparent with team members and observers when feedback has indicated that course correction is required. Sensitivity around how people approach, write, and speak about sealing traditions and practitioners is something I connect with; it’s been part of my life, my culture, and my family’s experience. At times that makes it hard to do the work sometimes, but for me it’s important that I try.

Is there any published scholarship you would suggest to readers interested in taking a deeper look into this history?

For someone just starting out learning about sealing and wanting to learn more about the on-the-ground experiences with activists from the perspective of the hunters, I would highly recommend that people check out Anne Troake’s 2005 documentary My Ancestors Were Rogues and Murderers and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril’s 2016 documentary Angry Inuk.

You shared a post with NiCHE discussing your research at the Laurier Archives Did you find anything else, separate from seals, of interest in the Environmental Conservation Movement in Canada collection? How might you see other scholars using this collection to expand environmental history?

Visiting the Laurier Archives was a very rewarding experience and I am most grateful for the opportunity to go there and look at but a small sample of their fascinating data. I did have a little time to look at some early documents on early Arctic cooperation, and giving my previous research on the Arctic Council, I’d love to explore that further should the opportunity arise for me to revisit that scholarship and reflect on the evolution of the forum since its inception. One day perhaps, but for the moment sealing and activism legacies is my focus.

Is there anything you would like readers to take away from the history of sealing and anti-sealing activism?

We’ve had the opportunity to speak to some amazing people and hear about their experiences, their hopes, their heart breaks and their reflections on both what has happened and what they want people to know about the reality of their experiences with anti-sealing activism. The hunters, and their families and communities, have voices, experiences and value to contribute to the evolution of the fisheries industry and the ecological conservation and sustainable use of our marine environments. They are world-leading experts more than most people having lived by and worked with marine ecosystems for generations. I would like readers to appreciate the expertise of the people, especially hunters, who were generous with their time and participated in our project.

Any further information that you would like to share with readers?

I’d like encourage people to check out our website. You can learn all about our project, access our Year 1 preliminary report, and access various pieces pertaining to our work, including some recorded presentations and a podcast interview.

On our website you can find out more some of the work of team members. For example you can read about Erik Kielsen’s recently co-authored a report published by Innovation South Greenland titled “Inuit Food” which you can find on our website, and his report on his experience at the Arctic Forum: Food in Umeå University in Sweden in March 2026. You can also read the Jim Winter Interview Series in which Jim interviewed some very knowledgeable individuals from the government and industry side of fisheries management and research. There is also information on Kristina Svel’s co-authored report published through the Natural Resources Institute Finland/LUKE that explores issues impacting the present and future of the Åland Archipelago fisheries. And you can also learn more about my book with Routledge Greenpeace in the Circumpolar North: Lessons Learned from the Anti-Sealing Era and the presentation I did on that at the Institute for the Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh in February 2026.

Feature Image: “An Equimaux watching a seal (1824)” by Sir William Edward Parry, 1790-1855. Published London: John Murray, 1824. Courtesy of Toronto Public Library. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

The following two tabs change content below.
My Twitter profile

Heather Green

Heather Green is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Saint Mary's University. She is interested in the intersections of environmental and Indigenous histories, histories of Indigenous and Settler Relations, and mining history, particularly in the Canadian North. You can connect with her on twitter @heathergreen21.

NiCHE encourages comments and constructive discussion of our articles. We reserve the right to delete comments that fail to meet our guidelines including comments under aliases, or that contain spam, harassment, or attacks on an individual.