Seal Hunters finally no longer have impunity

Sea Shepherd & Humane Society documenting brutal seal hunts in Canada

author: seal lover
www.portland.indymedia.org

We've all seen photos of baby harp seals; with their white coats and big dark eyes, they're quite adorable animals. Most of us have also heard of the yearly hunts that target them for their pelts, and leave their skinned bodies to rot all over the ice. This annual slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals, subsidized by the Canadian government, is cruel, economically unnecessary and is also the largest single killing of marine animals that happens every year. An on-the-ground scientific study found that 42% of the seals were skinned while they were still alive. Babies are killed in front of their mothers. Mother seals chase after their babies as their babies' still struggling bodies are dragged away on hooks. The level of cruelty of which humans are capable is disgusting beyond words. Someone complained about one of the graphic photos of the seal hunt posted to this site. This story is about the graphic acts themselves.

This year, both the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) have crews in Canada to document the hunt. Activists are prevented from approaching an active seal hunt closer than half a nautical mile without permission from the Candadian government. A permit to "observe" from no closer than 10 meters is the best one can get. Activists with and without such permits have been threatened and attacked while obeying the law, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and U.S. Coast Guard have been siding with the hunters.

Humane Society's Rebecca Aldworth and a rabid seal hunter
Some of these stories have been posted here to portland indymedia, but you can follow the updates, daily in some cases, at a couple of different websites:

• News from the Sea Shepherd ship, Farley Mowat, by its Captain, Paul Watson
• HSUS: Rebecca Aldworth's Journal for the 2005 Seal Hunt

Both crews have been interacting with each other, as well, and its interesting to read how the stories weave in and out of each other. For example, the HSUS helicoptered Farley Mowat crew members back to their ship after they were released from their arrests.

Hunting of seals on the current scale -- in the hundreds of thousands per year -- actually ceased in the 80's, after the Sea Shepherd Society and other groups brought it to the world's attention, and the European Parliament banned the import of baby harp seal pelts (a ban they would fail to renew of course). In 1996, the Canadian government reintroduced the big hunt, and more seals are killed yearly than during the 60's & 70's, when the issue first emerged. It just goes to show you that few victories are permanent when assumed to be so. You can't let these people out of your eyes for a second! They will not accept defeat until we strike the fatal blow.

Facts about the Canadian Seal Hunt: at HSUS | Sea Shepherd website

Captain Watson writes, in his book Seal Wars: "The war against the Canadian seal hunt is more than a protest. It is a crusade to bring about harmony between the natural world and humanity. All of us who oppose it are dedicated to the protection of life and the abolition of cruelty."

So what can people do to help?
All the groups involved have suggestions, from boycotting Canadian seafood and other goods, to writing to the Canadian government, to making donations. I suggest you check out their websites and decide how you'd like to contribute.

• Sea Shepherd "What you can do to help" page
• HSUS "Protect Seals: What You Can Do" page
• Boycott Canada
• harpseals.org
• International Fund for Animal Welfare

 

I don't approve of inhumain treatment of animals. If you need the animals body, please kill it first. I also don't believe in killing baby animals.

 

"Hunting of seals on the current scale -- in the hundreds of thousands per year -- actually ceased in the 80's, after the Sea Shepherd Society and other groups brought it to the world's attention, and the European Parliament banned the import of baby harp seal pelts (a ban they would fail to renew of course). In 1996, the Canadian government reintroduced the big hunt, and more seals are killed yearly than during the 60's & 70's, when the issue first emerged. It just goes to show you that few victories are permanent "

you ever think that maybe that the hunt is more of a population management tool....the paragraph above makes me think that the seals may have overpopulated faster than anticipated and that the hunt has taken place so long that the seals need to produce rapidly to procreate....and when the hunt was stopped the seals population exploded.......maybe the hunt is necesarry.....something to think about

 

let's say the hunt is "necessary". Do you think it's acceptable for people to skin them while they are *still alive*? If the population needs to be decreased, does that mean it's ok to torture them first? I know you don't, I just had to pose the question.