Urge Canada's Minister of International Trade to stop the seal hunt!
Please send a message to Minister David Emerson here:
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/trademinister_protectseals
DAPHNE D.
3:06 AM URGENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3:04 AM
Seals let down by European Commission - MEPs need to be contacted
BEFORE this Wednesday 14th March!
The European Commission (EC) has failed to bring forward a
legislative proposal to ban the import of seal imports, despite
unprecedented support in the European Parliament. Instead of
supporting a ban, the EC plans to conduct a further study to
investigate killing methods employed during the annual Canadian Harp
seal 'hunt', which could take years to complete.
Over the past 12 months, many member states have chosen to seek their
own solutions (In addition, Croatia, although not a member state, has
introduced a ban):
March 2006 - Italy introduced a temporary suspension of the marketing
of seal products
January 2007 - Belgium introduced a full ban on the import of seal
products
February 2007 - German Agriculture Minister issued statement that
Germany will introduce a national ban
Netherlands expected to introduce a full ban within the next few
weeks
UK Minister for Trade issued statement calling for EC to put forward
an EU wide ban on Harp and Hooded seal products
This Wednesday 14th March, the European Commission is due to report
their decision. Unfortunately, this information has only just been
released. However, it is not too late to secure an EU wide ban if we
all contact our respective MEPs before 14th March.
Please use information from this e-mail, to contact your MEP, asking
them to urge the European Commission to implement a ban on the import
of seal products into the EU.
E-mail contact details for MEPs can be found on
http://www.europarl.org.uk/index.htm
Each area of the UK has several MEPS. Please forward your e-mail to
all MEPs in your area.
Although individually drafted e-mails usually have more impact,
please feel free to use the following:
Dear xxxxx
I understand that the European Commission is due to deliver its
decision this Wednesday 14th March, on how it will respond to calls
for the implementation of a ban on the import of seal products into
the EU.
You may be aware, that some member states (Italy, Germany and
Belgium. UK does support an EU wide ban) have already taken their
own respective actions, in respect of this situation.
As an MEP who represents my area, I respectfully urge you to lobby
the European Commission to implement an immediate ban.
I look forward to your response.
Yours sincerely
Name
Address
The whole world reacted with horror to 2006's images of ice floes bloodied with the carcasses of hundreds of thousands of baby seals whose skins have been ripped from their backs. Unless caring individuals speak out and demand the seal hunt's end, that gruesome scene will be repeated again later this month.
The Canadian government has given the go-ahead for hunters to bludgeon to death 335,000 baby harp seals this year. To stop this atrocity, we must generate an international outcry against the Canadian government for sanctioning it.
We need to collect 50,000 signatures on PETA's international petition to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper before the hunt begins. It's time for Canada to erase this stain on its reputation and call off the slaughter immediately.
click here To Take Action
Despite a ban on the trade in whitecoat (very young harp seal) and blueback (young hooded seal) skins in the 1980s, seal products from Canada's cruel commercial seal hunt are still being imported into the UK. Harp seals can be killed and imported to the UK when they shed their distinctive white coats - usually at just 12 days of age. The German Parliament has voted unanimously in support of a ban on the trade in seal products.
The British Parliament must follow suit and not to be left behind other European countries in closing the market that supports this senseless slaughter which kills over 300,000 baby seals each year. Please ask your MP to put forward a Private Members' Bill to ban the trade in seal products. Private Members' Bills help push the issue up the political agenda and can lead to new laws being introduced.
Send a message here!
The international boycott of Canadian seafood products is having an incredible effect on the sales of seafood products from Canada and especially from Newfoundland.
The 2006 Newfoundland and Labrador fishery has declined in production value by over $100 million dollars over the last year. The industry has suffered an unprecedented loss in seafood sales of over $300 million over the last two years. According to the St. John’s Telegram, the fishing industry which was worth $1.1 billion in 2004 is now worth only $800 million and sales continue to decline.
Superhero-for-animals Pamela Anderson has created an online petition that she will personally deliver in Canada, urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to end the country's cruel seal hunt. As you may know, this infamous hunt kills up to 335,000 baby harp seals every year for their fur. Please take this simple step to save the seals and please don't forget to pass this on to friends and family.
Thursday, 23 March 2006, 13:26 GMT
Seal hunters and protesters are making their way to the Gulf of St Lawrence in eastern Canada for the start of the annual harp seal hunt. During the controversial cull, hundreds of thousands of young seal pups are expected to be shot or beaten to death. Animal rights groups argue that the hunt is barbaric and unnecessary. But the Canadian government insists the cull is necessary to control seal numbers, and local fishermen say it gives them much-needed seasonal work. The seal population is almost six million, nearly triple the level of the 1970s, according to the administration of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The government has increased the total allowable catch by 5,000, meaning that up to 325,000 harp seals can be hunted. However, correspondents say this year the hunt will be more difficult for both sealers and protesters because of melting ice floes, which means they will have to rely on boats.
'Massacre'
Harp seals can be legally hunted once their white coats darken at about two weeks old. Campaigners have called on US restaurant chains to boycott Canadian seafood until the hunt stops, and they plan demonstrations around the world. One of those opposing the cull is French film star and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot, who on Wednesday begged Canada to stop what she called a "massacre". Ms Bardot said she had requested an audience with Mr Harper to discuss the issue, but had been turned down. Several Canadian politicians defended the cull earlier this week, insisting it was not cruel or offensive and it helped the local economy. The activity reportedly earns 16.5 million Canadian dollars (£8.3m) in meat and pelt sales, benefiting thousands of local hunters.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4836726.stm)
Tearful Bardot begs Canada to scrap seal hunt
Despite mounting pressure from around the world to stop the annual harp seal slaughter which is expected to begin later this month, the Canadian Government has refused to call it off. Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) recently announced the quota for the 2006 slaughter, which will allow fishermen to kill 335,000 seals in 2006 (they are permitting an additional 10,000 seals to be killed this year for new Aboriginal initiatives, personal use and Arctic hunts). That's 15,000 more seals than were killed in last year's massacre.
With time running out for the seals, concerned individuals, organizations, coalitions and celebrities from all over the globe have amplified their efforts to put pressure on the Canadian Government in hopes that they will step in and save the seals. Paul and Heather McCartney's recent trip to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, during which they visited with young seals destined for slaughter, called the world's attention to this impending atrocity. Appealing to the world community and the Canadian Government for compassion, they sang, "All we are saying is give seals a chance" to television news cameras documenting their trip.
Following up on the McCartney's landmark peace mission, activists held a global day of action against the seal hunt last week in countries around the world, and IDA was an integral part of it. We held a lively protest in front of the Canadian Consulate in San Francisco (which is across the Golden Gate Bridge from IDA's Mill Valley, Calif. headquarters) that was attended by over 30 people. Enthusiastic activists gathered to hold signs and banners, chant, and pass out information to passerby about the hunt's inherent cruelty. Most spectators supported the demonstrators and expressed great interest in helping to end the hunt. Many said they were surprised the slaughter was still happening, and thanked activists for informing them of the current situation facing the seals. The San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner newspapers, the Associated Press wire service, television station Newsroom Access San Francisco, and radio stations KPFA and KTVU all came to cover the event.
Other successful events were simultaneously held in cities around the world. Over 100 activists protested the seal slaughter in Los Angeles, along with actors Martin Sheen and Dan Haggerty (Grizzly Adams) and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder and President Captain Paul Watson. Additional protests were held in at least 10 other American cities, as well as in Spain, South Africa, Croatia and three Canadian cities, putting opposition to the Canadian seal hunt on the world map.
What You Can Do:
- Contact
officials at the U.S. Embassy of Canada and tell them that you oppose
the Canadian seal slaughter and will boycott Canadian seafood until
their government agrees to end the killing.
The Embassy of Canada
501 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.20001-2114
USA
Tel: (202) 682-1740
Fax: (202) 682-7619
E-mail: webmaster@canadianembassy.org - If you eat fish or other aquatic animals, please do not buy Canadian seafood until Canada agrees to end the seal slaughter for good. Please also inform your friends how buying Canadian seafood supports the massacre of baby seals.
- Organize a demonstration. Request IDA's banner and contact IDA Campaign Coordinator Melissa Gonzalez at Melissa@idausa.org or (415) 388-9641, ext. 228 for help with organizing an event in your own community.
TORONTO — Protesters, celebrities and fishermen were gearing up for
Canada's hotly debated seal hunt, set to get under way later this week
in the gulf off the Atlantic Ocean.
Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has given a cold
shoulder to French film legend Brigitte Bardot, who intends to visit
Ottawa on Wednesday to implore the federal government to end the
regulated slaughter of some 325,000 harp seals.
Hearn told the St. John's Telegram in Newfoundland, where the
largest leg of the hunt takes place, that he turned down a request by
Bardot to meet during her visit.
"It just furthers their cause," Hearn said, referring to the attention such a meeting would generate for the hunt's opponents.
Bardot made waves in the 1970s when she first came to Canada to
protest the annual hunt by posing with the adorable doe-eyed pups. Many
celebrities, including Paul McCartney, have their pictures taken with
the fluffy white newborns, though Canada years ago banned the killing
of the pups until after they molt and lose their white fur.
Bardot, making her first trip back to Canada in nearly 30
years -- said she would be joined at a news conference in the federal
capital by American actress Persia White, of the TV show "Girlfriends,"
and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Founder Captain Paul Watson.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper also turned down a meeting with the former sex symbol.
"My responsibilities are about the ... needs of Canadians," he
said. "I don't intend to participate in the actions of famous people
for publicity."
Former Beatle McCartney and his wife, Heather Mills McCartney,
took to the ice floes off the Atlantic Ocean two weeks ago to frolic
with seal pups and highlight the work of anti-seal hunt efforts by the
Humane Society and other animal protection groups.
The McCartneys made a passionate appeal against the hunt,
saying officials should consider developing eco-tourism in place of the
hunt, which he described as brutal and "a stain on the character of the
Canadian people."
Fisheries officials and sealers say the annual hunt provides
badly needed income for the isolated fishing communities in Atlantic
Canada, as well as food and shelter for the aboriginal Inuits in the
Arctic North.
About 320,000 seals pups were killed during the hunt last
year, bringing the local fishermen C$16.5 million (euro13.84 million;
US$14.5 million) in supplemental income during the winter offseason.
Federal officials say fishing communities of Quebec and Newfoundland,
whose livelihoods were devastated when the Atlantic cod stocks dried up
in the 1990s, earn 25 percent to 40 percent of their annual income by
selling the seal pelts and blubber for about $70 each.
The dates for the spring leg of the hunt have yet to be
announced as the unseasonably mild temperatures in Atlantic Canada have
made the ice thin. But sealers and federal fisheries officials believe
it will get under way by Friday or Saturday. It can last from three to
10 days, depending on hunting conditions.
The quota for the hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is 91,000 harp seals.
The bulk of the seal hunt takes place in April, when it moves
the north coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, where sealers can take
224,000 animals this year.
The United States banned Canadian seals products in 1972, and
a ban on importing the white pelts of seal pups was implemented by the
European Community in 1983.
Source: Associated Press
On Wednesday, March 15th (the former official start of Canada's seal hunt) WSPA's US office participated in a rally in downtown Boston. An estimated crowd of 120 braved a cold, blustery day to protest Canada's seal hunt. For the full story, click here
OTTAWA — Canada has said it would allow 325,000 young seals to be
killed this year and accused activists of misleading the public in
suggesting that white-coat baby animals were still being slaughtered.
Images of the dewy-eyed white-coats dominate the Web sites of
environmental groups opposed to the annual Canadian hunt, and two weeks
ago former Beatle Paul McCartney got front-page photo coverage when he
lay down next to white-coated seals.
Since 1987 the killing of those seals has been banned, said
Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn, who suggested the real motive of many
groups was not to protect the herd but to raise funds.
"We have people who are -- whether it be innocently, which I
doubt, or deliberately -- passing messages which are saying this hunt
is continuing as it did 20 years ago. That is completely and utterly
false," he said on a conference call.
"However, it's a great way to attract attention, sympathy and, most of all, money."
This year's allowable seal catch, expected to start in the next
two to three weeks, is up slightly from last year's 320,000 limit.
Harp seals can be legally hunted once they shed their white
coats at about two weeks, though they are not usually hunted until at
least a week later. A spokesman for the Department of Fisheries and
Oceans said that at that age they are already weaned from their mothers
and qualify as juveniles.
One prominent group that campaigns against the seal hunt, the
International Fund for Animal Welfare, has pictures of white-coats
above headlines about how to stop the seal hunt.
Spokeswoman Sheryl Fine rejected the idea that the group was
being misleading and said the real issue was that young seals were
being killed -- even if they were not white-coats.
"Ninety-eight percent of the seals that are killed are between three weeks and three months of age," she said.
Hearn also dismissed the assertion made Wednesday by the the
Humane Society of the United States that the kill levels posed "a
threat to the very survival of the harp seal population."
The minister said harp seals now number almost six million, nearly triple the level of the 1970s.
"Canada's harp seal herd is a conservation success story. The herd is healthy and thriving," he said.
However, the U.S. Humane Society challenged the numbers.
"The DFO has a long and documented track record of
overestimating marine populations and allowing species to be fished to
commercial extinction," Rebecca Aldworth said for the group.
In fact, one reason that the Canadian government has cited in
the past for controlling the seal population was to try to allow a
recovery in the once-plentiful northern cod.
Hearn said the ballooning of the seal herd coincided with and
was a factor in the collapse of the cod fishery, but he said the main
reason was simply overfishing of cod.
Here's a fantastic sample letter from Kinship Circle:
TO: The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada
Office of the Prime Minister, 80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON, Canada K1A 0A2
Phone: 613-992-4211; Fax: 613-941-6900
email: pm@pm.gc.ca
URL: http://pm.gc.ca/eng/contact.asp
Dear Prime Minister Harper,
I write with restored hope for an end to the world's most unsustainable slaughter of marine wildlife. As Canada's newly elected Prime Minister, you play a vital role in stopping the massacre of over 300,000 seals each year.
I commend you for conveying opposition to a hunt that has claimed almost one million seal pups over the last three years. As you know, there is no credible rationale to convince an informed public the Canadian seal hunt is humane. In photographic images from 2005, the world viewed whitecoat pups gunned down, pounded in the skull, kicked in the face, and thrashed with hakapiks.
Up to 95% of harp seals slaughtered during the last five years were less than three months old. These vulnerable pups cannot even eat or swim on their own. Video footage depicts sealers routinely hauling them over the ice with boathooks.
In 2001, a team of impartial veterinarians determined that 42% of examined seals did not suffer sufficient cranial injury to render them unconscious. They concluded the seals were likely cognizant when skinned alive.
Scientists worldwide have renounced Canada's management policy for harp seals as reckless and unsustainable. The economic basis for the hunt is flimsy as well. In Newfoundland, where 90% of sealers live, seal-related income makes up less than one-tenth of 1% of the province's economy.
In addition, there is no conclusive evidence linking harp seals to depleted fish stocks. The greatest predators of young cod are other fish species. Seals actually consume the very fish that prey on cod! Eliminating harp seals could signify a rise in cod predators. "Certainly, no Department of Fisheries scientist thinks the seal had anything to do with the fishery's collapse," Dr. Jeffrey Hatchlings, a fishery biologist and former DO consultant, has stated. In fact, scientists are concerned that killing seals may hinder the recovery of ground fish stocks.
Convulsing animals amid rivers of blood disgrace your nation. Polls indicate nearly 80% of Americans and Europeans disapprove of the seal hunt, with many prepared to boycott Canadian seafood until it ends. I respectfully ask you to make a viable commitment to halting this scientifically, economically, and ethically indefensible hunt.
Thank you for your time and consideration in this important matter.
Sincerely,
Dear Mr. Regan:
We are writing to express our dismay about the Canadian government's unremitting support of the commercial seal hunt.
The fact that the Canadian government subsidizes this barbaric hunt is completely reprehensible. From data provided by the Dutch animal advocacy group, Bont voor Dieren, we were shocked to learn that financial backing to the tune of more than $20 million has been poured into the commercial seal hunt since 1995. This is nothing less than an investment in sheer cruelty.
The commercial seal hunt is immeasurably barbaric. Defenseless young animals, barely two weeks old, are beaten and shot. If this was not already bad enough, sealers have been observed skinning many seals while they are still alive and conscious. Canadian animal welfare regulations are thus flouted or not enforced at all. It is the Canadian government's responsibility to control this hunt properly and, moreover, to punish seal hunters who kill the seals inhumanely or exceed the set quotas. Instead, it continuously ignores such abuses and has even rewarded the seal hunters with even higher quotas still.
It is highly objectionable for these marine mammals to be killed to obtain a luxury, trivial product such as fur - there are indeed many good and warm alternatives. The fact that many older seals are killed solely (and often illegally) for their penises for the Asian aphrodisiac market is also extremely disturbing. Furthermore, the marketing of seal oil as a 'cure-all' natural health product is abhorrent.
We would like to urge the Canadian government to pay heed to the weight of international public opinion and end the commercial seal hunt once and for all. The abolition of the hunt would most certainly mark an important step in Canada's development as a humane and ecologically responsible nation. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Annie V.Canada's seal hunt August 29, 2005 1:15 PM
Canada's
seal hunt is responsible for the brutal slaughter of more than 300,000
harp seals every year. Canadian officials routinely dismiss arguments
that show the hunt is both inhumane and ecologically damaging, so we
are turning to other methods to convince the government to end the
hunt. Hollywood can help.
The HSUS is
asking the powerful Hollywood community, which shoots 25% of its films
in Canada annually—spending about $1 billion in the process—to take its
business elsewhere until Canada ends its cruel seal hunt. If you would
like to participate in this effort, please fill out this form, and we
will contact you with information about what you can do. Please use
Hollywood's clout to protect seals.
http://www.hsus.org/forms/hollywood_focus_on_seals.html
Thank you for reading, love from Annie
[ send green star]
[
accepted]
Everything to do with the Canadian seal hunt, please post here!
The Canadian commercial seal hunt is the largest mass slaughter of marine mammals in the world, and Canada has slaughtered over 320,000 seals in March and April!
During the last three years, the government of Canada has delivered the death sentence to over one million baby harp seals. During the last two months, Canadian seal killers viciously slaughtered over 320,000 seals. Thousands more have washed up on the beaches of Newfoundland.
Canada has yet to announce a new kill quota for the next three years.
What we need to do now is to promote the international boycott of Canadian seafood products.
