Add your Voice to the Call for an End of the cruel Seal Hunt
- by: Christiane Henker, www.protect-seals.mixxt.com
- recipient: Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Minister Gail Shea, Company Pajar,Senator Mac Harb
The Canadian government not only defends but also promotes this cruelty. Canada is also blatantly circumventing a European law aimed at stopping this terrible slaughter.
The seals are used as scapegoats for past mismanagement of fish stocks, a commercial %u2018resource%u2019 and a political football.
t meant that harp seal pups could be legally killed as soon as they begin to shed their whitecoat, around 10 or 12 days after birth. Hooded seals could be killed when they shed their blueback pelt at about 15-16 months of age. However, on 5 May 2009 the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to ban the placing on the market of seal products throughout the EU following an extensive lobby from animal welfare organisations. This means that a major market for seal fur has been closed and the influential European fashion houses will no longer be able to use seal fur.
The annual seal hunt in Canada has been subject to %u2018management%u2019 since the 1970%u2019s but the annual quota has been based more on market demand than scientific evidence. It has steadily increased since the mid 90%u2019s during which time new federal subsidies have encouraged sealers to kill more seals. The quota for 2009 was 280,000 seals (with 500,000 carried over from 2008 making a total of 320,000). However the threat of the ban in the EU caused the price of seal pelts to drop from around 100 $Can to around 15 $Can and the total number of seals killed to date is less than 60,000.
The killing of what most would consider to still be %u2018baby%u2019 seals is offensive in itself but the methods of slaughter are horrific. Early in the season harp seals are still killed with clubs or hakapiks as they sit helpless on the ice, unable to escape as they still cannot survive in the water. Later in the season they are shot both on the ice and in the water. They are shot by fishermen, not marksmen. The seals are on shifting ice floes and the sealers on moving boats, so many animals are only injured rather than killed. Some injured seals try to escape by jumping into the water only to die horribly later. As the quota is based on %u2018landed catch%u2019 these seals are not included in the figures so the amount that actually die is far greater than just the quota allowed.
It is time for the people of the world to show they will not tolerate this barbarism.
Lets stand up and say NO!
Lets get 1 Million Signatures!
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Dear Prime Minister Harper,
I am deeply opposed to Canada's annual cruel, wasteful, and unsustainable commercial slaughter of harp seal pups.
Harp seals are facing a new threat - global warming - which is resulting in dramatically reduced ice coverage in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off Newfoundland.
Your government is on record stating it will take 'real action' on global warming. And yet you have ignored the one tangible action your government could take to combat the effects of global warming - dramatically reducing the seal hunt quota.
Apart from these serious conservation concerns shared by many Canadians, the seal hunt targets baby animals, a practice that is unacceptable to the majority of Canadians. In the past two years, 98% of the seals killed have been less than three months old. Severe cruelty has been witnessed and documented at the hunt during the past 30 years and incidents of cruelty are not decreasing.
This hunt only continues to exist because it is propped up by a range of government subsidies and tax-payers money. More and more countries around the world are adopting legislation to ban the import of seal products.
Instead of investing in meaningful employment opportunities for Newfoundlanders, the federal government continues to fund and support a seasonal and wasteful seal hunt which draws national and international criticism to a proud region of Canada trying to build a reputation for high-tech research and first-class environmental tourism.
I urge you to act immediately to end this unnecessary cruelty to seals and to restore Canada's pride as a humane and ecologically responsible society.
Sincerely,
we, the undersigned.
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