Cruel Canadian seal hunt begins in northern Gulf of St. Lawrence
Team from Humane Society International (UK) on location to witness hunt
5 April 2007
Campaigners from the UK based Humane Society International today (Thursday 5 April) witnessed the beginning of Canada's annual commercial seal hunt in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, off Newfoundland – the start of the cruel slaughter of up to 270,000 seal pups.
The team is there to bear witness and is capturing images to bring the truth of this cruel practice to the public. Last week, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) authorised the killing of 270,000 seals in 2007.
"This is the largest, most brutal slaughter of marine mammals on the planet," said Mark Glover, Director of Humane Society International (UK). "I have witnessed this hunt for the last three years, every year we see wounded seals left to suffer in agony and seals skinned alive."
Each March, harp seals are born on the ice floes off the east coast of Canada. This year hundreds of thousands of baby seals perished as global warming caused the sea ice to melt before they were old enough to survive in the water. Despite this ecological disaster, the Canadian government has authorised yet another 270,000 seals to be cruelly slaughtered for their fur.
The hunt began in the southern Gulf on Monday, but the Department of Fisheries and Oceans refused to issue observation permits. The DFO has provided observation permits to the HSI ProtectSeals team to observe the hunt in the northern Gulf.
The HSI is working in the UK and Europe to close markets for seal products, removing the financial incentive for the sealers to kills the seals. Several European countries including Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium have already instigated action to introduce national bans on the import of seal products.
In September 2006, a record number of Members of the European Parliament signed a Declaration calling for a EU wide ban on the import of all seal products. The European Commission has recently committed to undertake its own study of the hunt in advance of possible legislative proposals. In addition, the UK government announced in February 2007 that it would actively pursue an extension to the current EU ban (of whitecoats, pups under 12 days of age) to all seal products irrespective of the age of the animal.
79% of UK residents believe that the annual Canadian seal hunt should be stopped and 73% support a ban on the import of seal products into Britain. (Opinion Research Business, 2005 for Respect for Animals)
For more information, visit www.protectseals.org.
To view video from this year's hunt, visit www.animalchannel.org.