RANKIN INLET, Nunavut — Canada’s governor general ate a dead seal’s raw heart in a show of support to the country’s seal hunters, a display that a European Union spokeswoman on Tuesday called “too bizarre to acknowledge.”
Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean, the representative of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as Canada’s head of state, gutted the seal and swallowed a slice of the mammal’s organ late Monday after an EU vote earlier this month to impose a ban on seal products on grounds that the seal hunt is cruel.
Hundreds of Inuit at a community festival gathered Monday as Jean knelt above a pair of seal carcasses and used a traditional ulu blade to slice the meat off the skin. After cutting through the flesh, Jean turned to the woman beside her and asked: “Could I try the heart?”
After swallowing a piece whole and deeming it tasty, Jean defended the hunt as an eons-old traditional hunting practice that is not inhumane.
