Seal Hunting – End the Barbaric Slaughter; We Must Be Their Voice
by J. Lee
Seal Hunting – End the Barbaric Slaughter
It has been estimated seal hunting or sealing dates back 4,000 years or more. In early history killing of seals was done for food and clothing. The first recorded killing was in 1515 by Europeans as they brought the seal skins to Seville. In the 1500’s it is believed that Newfoundland, Labrador and the Gulf of St. Lawrence were the first commercial sealing regions.
Inuit’s have seal hunted as a way of survival for food and clothing for generations. They usually hunt the adult ringed seals. They keep their killing to a minimum. Modern sealers have devastated their survival. Seal numbers have decreased. Due to scarcity hunting has become less predictable for them.
Even though sealing is not exclusive to Canada there is an outcry to stop the killing there. Demand has decreased, but sealing continues in Canada. The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) regulates the seal hunt in Canada. They are supposed to monitor sealers which is not possible considering the vast region for sealing. Are seals killed or alive when skinned? Who would really know except for those who kill for a living.
Seal Slaughter, Stockpiles, and Subsidies: Canada’s Dirty Secret – Baby seals are helpless and have no way to escape from the sealers’ clubs and guns. Seals can be killed as soon as they lose their iconic white fur at just a few weeks of age, and most are between 3 weeks and 3 months old when they are killed.
National Geographic: Demand For Seal Products Has Fallen—So Why Do Canadians Keep Hunting? – The seal business isn’t booming any longer, but the Great White North is reluctant to give up the controversial pursuit.
(WARNING) GRAPHIC VIDEO 2014 Canadian Seal Hunt Exposed posted by The Humane Society of the United States: Each spring, the Canadian government authorizes its commercial fishing industry to kill hundreds of thousands of baby seals. They are impaled on hooks, dragged across the ice and cut open—and their pelts are often stockpiled in a warehouse.
Yearly commercial sealers kill numerous baby harp seals. They are too young to swim away which leaves them vulnerable. They make an easy target. They are killed and skinned.
They are separated and rounded up to be slaughtered one by one. The only safe baby seals are those who still have their white coats. In Canada it is illegal to hunt newborn harp seals (whitecoats) and young hooded seals (bluebacks). Those not so lucky are only a few weeks old who have shed their newborn coats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzkj-x8QvjM
Last Chance for Animals – Each year, tens of thousands of harp seals are slaughtered in a massive commercial hunt on Canada’s ice floes in the North Atlantic. The majority of seals killed in this government-subsidized massacre are babies between 12 days and 12 months old.
Harpseals.org – An Introduction to the Canadian Seal Hunt: Every year, when the time is “right” (as soon as the ice conditions permit and the seal pups start shedding their fuzzy white coats), a few hundred to a few thousand Canadian fishermen (almost all of European descent and most living in Newfoundland and the Magdalen Islands of Quebec), find their way to the floes and proceed to club, bludgeon, shoot, and skin tens to hundreds of thousands of harp seals. About 95% of the seals killed in the commercial seal ‘hunt’ are 3 weeks to 3 months old.
National Geographic: Demand For Seal Products Has Fallen—So Why Do Canadians Keep Hunting? – The seal business isn’t booming any longer, but the Great White North is reluctant to give up the controversial pursuit.
Some are shot and some are killed using hakapiks. The tool is a hook club with a metal tip that pierces. It crushes their skulls. The hook is used to drag their bodies to skinning stations. After they are skinned their dead bodies are left to decay on the ice or dropped into the water.
Seal skins are used to make waterproof jackets, vests and boots. Seal fur is used to make fur coats, hats and footwear. Fashion designer Donatella Versace has used seal pelts in her fashions. Seal meats is sold to the Asian food market. Seal blubber makes seal oil that is used in fish oil supplements.
It is within our power to choose kindness over cruelty. There is something we all can do. It is our choice to buy or pass on items that contribute to seal deaths. We can support organizations on the front lines, we can become activists, we can contact legislators or we can sign petitions.
Thanks for caring!
RESCUE GROUPS
Proud Canadian Celebs Blast Canada’s Seal Slaughter: Even though all major markets for seal pelts have closed, Canada continues its annual commercial seal slaughter. The following five celebs have used their voice to help seals in their home country. Join them by taking action to end the seal slaughter.
International Fund for Animals (International Headquarters)
1400 16th Street NW
Suite 510
Washington DC 20036
United States
1 (202) 296 3860
Harpseals.org
P.O. Box 795
Victorville, CA 92393
1-866-4-HARPSEALS (1-866-442-7773)
Last Chance For Animals
8033 Sunset Blvd #835
Los Angeles, CA 90046
Phone: 310-271-6096
Toll Free Phone: 1-888-88ANIMAL (888-882-6462)
