When I first heard about this issue last year I chose to turn a blind eye, because I am not an animal rights nut. But after learning a little more, I have to speak out against what is clearly the one of the most barbaric and wasteful practices around. THIS IS WRONG.
In about two weeks, more than 300,000 seal pups will be clubbed and many skinned alive on the Canadian ice floes near the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This five-day annual event is called a "hunt", but that is hardly an appropriate term since these beautiful white seals cannot even move or defend themselves.
Even if you don't recommend this diary, I ask you to watch this quick
slide show. It's very well done - not offensive or shocking. The images above do not do the scene justice.
A few quick things you should know:
- The seal slaughter is an off-season activity conducted by Canadian fishermen and represents only 5% of their annual income
- Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) is leading the U.S. congressional charge against the hunt
- Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Wild Oats and many other stores and restaurants have boycotted Canadian seafood until the government ends the hunt.
- Tomorrow, March 15, there will be protests in New York, Washington and other cities at the Canadian consulates and embassies. More about Wednesday's noontime rallies here.
- The hunt is supported and subsidized by the Canadian government, but activists are hopeful that the new prime minister will soon end the hunt.
- The majority of the Canadian population is opposed to the slaughter.
Rebecca Aldworth grew up in a sealing village and travels to bear witness to the seal slaughter each year:
The landscape on the ice right before the hunt starts is absolutely spectacular. It's breathtaking. The harp seal nursery that forms in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is truly one of the greatest wildlife spectacles anywhere in the world. The peace that you feel on the ice floes is something that I have yet to experience anywhere else on earth.
When you fly over the hunt, just after the hunt started, you see the ice floes that were white just a couple of days ago are now running red with blood. It's truly horrific. In just a few days, the hunters make their way through that wonderful nursery and they kill everything there. So, within a week, what was once this populated, wonderful peaceful nursery has become an open-air slaughterhouse. Thousands of carcasses stacked up...blood trails leading in all directions to the boats...and open lakes of blood across the ice.
The seals that are killed at the hunt are pups....and they are being killed for their skins. Their fur is shipped directly to Europe...destined for the fashion market. There is almost no market for the meat. So the meat is left to rot, the seal carcasses are abandoned on the ice. It's an absolutely wasteful hunt and one that no thinking person could ever support if they saw it for themselves.
The people who hunt the seals are very desensitized. However, most sealers, when they really talk about it, will tell you that the first time they had to kill a seal, the first time they had to do it themselves--they cried.
Some of the seals are too young to be slaughtered. So they are left, bewildered and covered in blood, in the middle of the carnage on the ice floes. It is one of the loneliest and most horrific sights I've ever seen.
We want American consumers to tell Canada that Americans will not buy Canadian seafood until the cruel and outdated hunt is ended for good.
Find comprehensive resources on this topic here and here.
Yes, it's true that Canada has been a better player on the international stage than the United States. But this is a completely separate issue.