Animal Rights, Human Rights: Ecology, Economy and Ideology in the Canadian Arctic

Jean-Franзois Robitaille is an assistant professor of Zoology at
Laurentian University.

In this book’s tightly written pages, experimental anthropologist
Wenzel tries to influence readers’ views on animal rights. He draws
from approximately 350 scientific and public references, and from his
own thorough experience of Canadian northern life and of Inuit people to
support his arguments. The book, which resembles a thesis (and actually
supports one), emphasizes the importance of Inuit people and their way
of life by presenting the known history of the northern people, and the
importance of seal hunting in their survival. The author also succeeds
in bringing to our attention the idea that human rights and animal
rights may not necessarily be incompatible, and that in some cases (such
as seal hunting by the Inuit) both may have to be accounted for.

I am thankful to the author for having helped me, and all other
Canadian readers, to better understand the uniquely intricate problems
of human survival in the context of animal conservation and welfare. As
a former participant in the elaboration of the Seal and Sealing
Commission final report (1986), I was deeply proud to read facts and
thoughts about the intimate, almost religious relationship between
Native people and our native fauna. This relationship has been (and
still is) underestimated in the minds of international ecology
activists.