The annual bloodbath that comprises the largest kill off of marine mammals in the world, the Newfoundland seal "hunt" (a misnomer if ever there was one), is scheduled to start within weeks.
For years, world leaders including Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, scores of international stars (going back to that famous photo of Brigitte Bardot cuddling a seal on the ice), and multitudes of people whose blood runs cold seeing a cudgel raised to a baby seal have implored the Canadian government to end the annual slaughter. One bumper sticker read, "If you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention," but everyone was outraged -- except the Canadian government, which has stalwartly defended the seal slaughter and gone to great lengths to find a market for the pelts that no one wants and that many countries, including the U.S., will not accept within their borders. Now even Canadian lawmakers might finally be listening.
While Member of Parliament Ryan Cleary says that it's the "official" position of the New Democratic Party to support the seal hunt, he is now questioning whether it should continue. "Part of our history is also whaling, for example, and the day came when the whaling industry stopped," he said a few days ago. "Now, is that day coming with the seal hunt? It just may be."
Cleary points out that Canada is drawing massive worldwide criticism for an industry that only earned $1 million last year, almost the same amount that must have to be paid to throw the rotting pelts in warehouses, given the fact that almost anyone you ask would rather be seen dead than in a sealskin anything. Thanks to videotapes that have increased awareness of how sealers hook baby harp seals in the eye, cheek or mouth so as not to damage the fur and drag them across the ice alive or beat them to death with a club that has a spike or sharp nail on one side of it, the markets for seal products are slamming shut faster than Stephen Harper's door on a PETA protester. Just last month, Russia, Canada's largest seal-pelt market, followed the lead of the U.S. and European Union and banned the import of sealskins. "We know that the world appetite is not there for seal meat, but the world appetite for seal products -- I don't know if it's there," said Cleary. "And you know what? I may be shot for talking about this, and for saying this, but it's a question we all have to ask."
And while Cleary is coming under heavy fire from greedy sealers and certain politicians who are beholden to them, Canadian residents who oppose the cruel slaughter (and they are the majority) are dancing a jig. Responding to the controversy in a news release, Cleary said, "We cannot hide behind the debate and pretend that the market for seals is not in trouble. Facing this reality head on is the only way to address this situation."
Every February, as the seal slaughter draws near, I think of these words of the Chinese poet Su Tung-P'o: "Life passes like a spring dream without a trace." Soon, I hope, the seal mothers will no longer have to endure what must be a spring nightmare, seeing their pups' lives battered into oblivion, the "trace" being the line of blood on the ice that leads from bludgeon site to commercial vessel. That will change if more forward-thinking MPs find the courage to join Cleary and suggest to their colleagues that there are more ethical and savory ways to make a living.
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And yes, a seal has a *much* better chance of survival in Canada than a dog does in Ingrid's clutches.
Thank you and PETA, not to mention the many other groups and individuals, for your tireless work for the seals.
The seal hunt is targeted by the likes PETA because they have an easy case of appealing to the public because seal pups are incredibly cute as white coats. If cows or chickens looked as cute and weren't part of our everyday diet they'd be just as much a target.
Seals are free range and live in freedom in over-populated ice flows. They have a chance to live. Animals in any other major food industry are harvested in tiny cages and injected with anything and everything to plump them up.
And the hunt itself is as humane as any hunt. Most sealers use rifles (it IS the year 2012), like most other hunts in the world. And those that don't have guidelines for properly hunting. Hakapiks were retired decades ago.
A one-million dollar industry may seem insignificant to the rest of the world, but to Newfoundlanders, particularly those who fish during the summer months, this is the supplemental income needed to survive. And no, the solution is not to just give them one-million dollars every year. That doesn't solve the problem. It creates a totally different systemic one.
Nothing that he says will have any impact. He just wants to score some political points with his constituents back home and say "See I'm not wasting my time here in Ottawa".
No one wants seal meat or seal furs. The days of the fur trade are long gone.
If there is overpopulation of seals as some proponents claim, let nature take its course. Overpopulations don't last long if you let things be. Eventually it stabilizes so that the food source can maintain it.
Canada's commercial seal hunt is a slaughter of defenselesÂs baby seals. It is true that in Canada, newborn "whitecoatÂ" harp seals are protected from hunting. But as soon as they begin to shed their fluffy white coats—as young as 12 days old—these baby seals are legally hunted by sealers. In fact, 97 percent of the seals killed in the commercial seal hunt over the past three years have been younger than 3 months, and most were younger than 1 month old. At the time of slaughter, many of these pups had not yet eaten their first solid meal or taken their first swim. Sealers prefer to kill the baby seals because their skins are in "prime" condition and fetch the highest prices.
Myth: The seal hunt is humane.
Fact: In 2001, an independenÂt veterinary panel performed post-morteÂms on seal carcasses abandoned on the ice floes. Their report concluded that in 42 percent of cases, the seals did not show enough evidence of cranial injury to even guarantee unconsciouÂsness at the time of skinning. This report is supported by the testimony of independenÂt journalistÂs, parliamentÂarians and scientists who observe and document the commercial seal hunt each year. Footage from the commercial seal hunt consistentÂly shows conscious pups stabbed with boathooks and dragged across the ice, wounded pups left to choke on their own blood and conscious seal pups cut open. Video footage of the 2005 hunt can be viewed at www.protecÂtseals.org.
who subsist on considerably less.