Sick, Cruel Canada Begins its Annual Baby Seal Slaughter: Bludgeoning, Skinning Alive Seal Pups: Largest Slaughter of Marine Mammals on Earth

Every year I unfortunately have to post about this. Unbelievable that it’s still going on. Again, this is grown men going out and bludgeoning baby seals.

As stated at http://www.peta.org/feat-canadaSealHunt.asp

“Canada’s annual seal hunt is the largest slaughter of marine mammals on Earth. Last year, the world looked on in horror as the Canadian government permitted the slaughter of more than 330,000 harp seals. During the hunt, baby seals are shot or repeatedly clubbed. Sealers bludgeon the animals with clubs and “hakapiks” (clubs with metal hooks on their ends) and drag the seals—who are still conscious—across the ice floes with boat hooks. Many of these animals are even skinned alive. Hunters toss dead and dying seals into heaps and leave their carcasses to rot on the ice floes because there is no market for seal meat. Veterinarians who have investigated the hunt have found that hunters routinely fail to comply with Canada’s animal welfare standards.

It is legal in Canada to kill seal pups when they are about 12 days old. During last year’s hunt, almost all the seals killed were 3 months old or younger. Many had not yet learned how to swim or eaten their first solid meals. Baby seals are helpless and have no way to escape from the sealers’ clubs.”

Unfortunately, they will now take their slaughter to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island Friday.

For more about what you can do to stop this, and to view photos and videos that show proof of the horrible violence of this issue, see:

http://www.seashepherd.org/seals/

http://www.peta.org/feat-canadaSealHunt.asp

Article:

Seal hunt ends off Iles de la Madeleine; more than 17,200 killed

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090325/national/seal_hunt

By The Canadian Press

HALIFAX, N.S. - Seal hunters returned to the ice in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence for a few hours Wednesday to kill the last remaining seals allowed under their quota off Iles de la Madeleine.

Phil Jenkins, a spokesman for the federal Fisheries Department, said about 17,200 seals were killed on Monday and Tuesday, leaving only a few hundred remaining before the hunt ended at 10 a.m. local time.

Helicopters carrying observers from two animal welfare groups headed out to witness the final stage of the hunt, which involved sealers from the Quebec islands.

In addition to sealers in boats, the hunt involved sealers who were able to reach the animals by snowmobile and all-terrain vehicles because of ice that reached the shore.

Jenkins said a hunt in the gulf for sealers from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island is scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. Friday.

"That's the earliest, weather dependent," he said.

About 50 licensed sealers plus their crew will take part in that hunt between Iles de la Madeleine and Cape Breton. It has a small quota of 1,435 animals.

The federal government has set a combined allowable catch for this year's East Coast seal hunt of 338,200 harp, hooded and grey seals.