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Enormous kill of baby harp seals in Canada!
Despite years of protests and a declining world market, Canadian officials have set an unsustainably high kill quota for baby harp seals.
Once again, the brutal slaughter of baby harp seals, hooded seals and gray seals begins off of Newfoundland and Greenland. Over 1000 hunters are expected to converge on the ice flows on March 20th to begin the clubbing of hooded, gray seals and 4 week old white baby harp seals - right in front of their mothers. Due to wind and ice conditions, the seals will be close to the islands and visible to bystanders so the Newfoundland government is demanding that any photographing of the hunt be made illegal. Newfoundlanders seem to be concerned that that the image of slaughtering innocent baby animals is not good for their tourism industry. So rather than stop the hunt, they are making documenting it a crime. Its perfectly legal to skin them alive- just not legal to "shoot " them with cameras!
Quotas of 275,000 harp seals and 10,000 hooded seals were announced by the Canadian Dept of Fisheries and Oceans despite protests by scientists and conservationists. Only 250,000 baby harp seals were born this year. Concerns that the population simply cannot sustain the high levels of the hunt arise from the 1996 to 1998 mortality figures. The total human-caused mortality of harp seals for those years exceeded potential biological removal levels by 1.5 to 5.9 times. The mortality is for all causes of seal deaths including not only the reported kills from the Newfound hunt, but also unreported kills, the Greenland seal hunt and mortality from drowning in fishing nets. The best available science indicates that the quota is up to three times too high considering the high mortality of seals but this did not deter Canada from setting unsustainable quotas.
Not only is the hunt a threat to the survival of the seals species, it is also inhumane. Observers from the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association attended the hunt in 1997 and 1998 and were appalled that seals were being skinned alive. They called for more humane measures, more observers and patrol officers, and recommended that population studies be carried out before quotas were set. Canadas response was to raise the age that the seals could be killed to 4 weeks old so that it did not look so brutal to the public.
Years of protest, while bringing the hunt to international attention, has not stopped it. It is time to make seal watching more profitable than seal killing. Contact the tourism board in Newfoundland. Let them know you would love to go visit the seals- but wont do so until the hunt is stopped.
Send protest letters stating that you wont visit Newfoundland until the hunt is stopped to:
Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation,
P.O. Box 8700,
St. John's, Newfoundland,
Canada,
A1B 4J6
Or email the Dept of Tourism through their website at : http://www.gov.nf.ca/tourism/topmenu/contact/default.htm
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SAMPLE LETTER
Dear Minister of Tourism:
I am outraged that you support the killing of baby harp seals and other seals. I would like to come to see the seals of Newfoundland some day. I WON"T come until I hear from you that this barbaric slaughter has stopped. Please contact me when you have changed your country from one that kills seals to one that promotes tourism to go see the seals.
Sincerely,
Contact Newfoundland and let them know you won't go there while the sealing continues
