Canadian Seal Hunt 2009
Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 1:01 am
Despite international pressure to discontinue the annual baby Harp Seal Hunt, the Canadian government opened the seal hunt this week. If you live in Canada or the European Union, please urge your government officials to end the vicious massacre of baby seals for their fur. If you live in the US, support the boycott on ALL Canadian seafood until their government takes action.
I can't believe they do this....it's absolutely disgusting. Some of the poor babies, ranging from 3 weeks old to 3 months old, are skinned while they're still alive. You can read more at www.hsus.org, www.ifaw.org
From http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/mari ... _2009.html
March 25, 2009
Hovering Over Hell
Rebecca Aldworth, our lead campaigner against Canada’s cruel slaughter of baby seals, has just returned from a difficult day of documenting the hunt. I asked her to share her thoughts, since it’s so important that we tell this story to the world. Here’s her report.
Today was very hard.
Sealers from the Magdalen Islands (map) had already killed most of the seals allotted to them in their quota by the end of yesterday. So it was likely they would kill the rest today very quickly.
We would only have a few hours to film the cruel reality of this slaughter.
Our helicopters left at dawn, battling gale force winds to reach the killing zone. On the horizon, I could see sealing vessels working their way through the ice floes, slaughtering as many seals as they could before the quota was filled. We came closer, and the blood began to appear. Giant pools of it, spread all across the ice. Every few hundred feet, dozens of carcasses were abandoned in macabre piles.
Once we reached the vessels and our cameras were rolling, it was only a minute before a sealer violated the Marine Mammal Regulations (guidelines intended to reduce cruelty). He didn’t bother to check to ensure the animal was unconscious before slicing her open. All around, terrified seals attempted to crawl away from the blows of the clubs, but they had no escape.
We filmed everything we could, but within an hour, the sealers had reached their quota.
As the vessels headed back to shore, we landed to film the aftermath. On the ice: silence. The sealers had clubbed to death almost every seal in sight. Open graves of skinned baby seals covered the ice in all directions. So many sightless eyes followed us across the ice as we moved through the area.
Just ahead of us, we saw two live seal pups—left alone in the carnage. These babies were saved by their white fur, which almost entirely covered them. But their salvation is temporary. On Friday, the hunting begins again, and hundreds of thousands more seals will die.
We passed one pup who had crawled into a small cave formed by ice. He hid his head as we approached, clearly terrified. I tried to talk softly to him, to let him know that it would be okay. But he just lay there, hiding his head. This three-week old seal pup had just seen hundreds of others beaten to death in front of him. To him, people now mean clubs and violence and pain.
Today, we filmed this horror—the tiny carcasses such a stark reminder that this is a slaughter for fur. They died by the thousands here, painfully, just to produce fur coats that no one needs.
On Friday, we leave for the second area of killing, and I know what we will see there. But I also know that we are close to ending this, and that we may never have to witness this kind of cruelty again.
As we get ready to leave for the remote area where this next phase will occur, please be a part of our team. Visit humanesociety.org/protectseals to find out what you can do to stop this cruelty forever, and help us spread the word.
Hovering Over Hell
Only Silence Remains
Posted March 24, 2009, 9 PM AST
This afternoon, we reached the scene of the commercial harp seal slaughter in the ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Our helicopter flew through gale force winds—slowed by massive gusts—to reach the carnage.
By the time we arrived, we had little fuel and almost no time to spend there before sundown. But it didn't take long for us to fully comprehend the atrocity happening on the ice below.
It's hard to write this, because it's hard to think about what I have just seen.
The blood was visible from the air, from 2,000 feet away. The carcasses were dumped—as they always are—left to rot in the blood of the slaughtered seals. These seals are killed for their fur in a pointless slaughter, all for vanity and fashion.
From the air, we could see the babies try to crawl away, to escape as the sealers bore down on them.
But they were no match for men armed with hakapiks and knives. In seconds, the sealers reached the defenseless pups, and beat the terrified animals to death.
We landed on the ice to observe the killing from there. We ran across the floe toward the area where the sealers were killing seals.
What was once the best place on Earth is now one of the worst. Seeing us, they stopped their grisly work, got back on their vessel and left the area.
The sealers know that the images of the slaughter are their undoing. They will do anything to prevent us from obtaining our evidence—including occasionally leaving a few survivors behind.
Two pups remained on the floe—alone and terrified, they were left to crawl through the blood and carcasses.
These animals were born in the beginning of March. Now, just three weeks later, they have been subjected to violence more obscene than most adult humans can fathom.
I take some small comfort in the knowledge that those two seals are still alive on that pan of ice because we were there today.
What remains of the harp seal nursery is the carnage, the devastation, and the complete absence of the sounds of the seals. What was once the best place on Earth is now one of the worst.
Rebecca Aldworth is director of Humane Society International Canada (HSI Canada). For more than a decade, she has observed firsthand Canada's commercial seal hunt—escorting more than 100 scientists, parliamentarians and journalists to the ice floes to bear witness to the largest marine mammal slaughter on Earth.
I can't believe they do this....it's absolutely disgusting. Some of the poor babies, ranging from 3 weeks old to 3 months old, are skinned while they're still alive. You can read more at www.hsus.org, www.ifaw.org
From http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/mari ... _2009.html
March 25, 2009
Hovering Over Hell
Rebecca Aldworth, our lead campaigner against Canada’s cruel slaughter of baby seals, has just returned from a difficult day of documenting the hunt. I asked her to share her thoughts, since it’s so important that we tell this story to the world. Here’s her report.
Today was very hard.
Sealers from the Magdalen Islands (map) had already killed most of the seals allotted to them in their quota by the end of yesterday. So it was likely they would kill the rest today very quickly.
We would only have a few hours to film the cruel reality of this slaughter.
Our helicopters left at dawn, battling gale force winds to reach the killing zone. On the horizon, I could see sealing vessels working their way through the ice floes, slaughtering as many seals as they could before the quota was filled. We came closer, and the blood began to appear. Giant pools of it, spread all across the ice. Every few hundred feet, dozens of carcasses were abandoned in macabre piles.
Once we reached the vessels and our cameras were rolling, it was only a minute before a sealer violated the Marine Mammal Regulations (guidelines intended to reduce cruelty). He didn’t bother to check to ensure the animal was unconscious before slicing her open. All around, terrified seals attempted to crawl away from the blows of the clubs, but they had no escape.
We filmed everything we could, but within an hour, the sealers had reached their quota.
As the vessels headed back to shore, we landed to film the aftermath. On the ice: silence. The sealers had clubbed to death almost every seal in sight. Open graves of skinned baby seals covered the ice in all directions. So many sightless eyes followed us across the ice as we moved through the area.
Just ahead of us, we saw two live seal pups—left alone in the carnage. These babies were saved by their white fur, which almost entirely covered them. But their salvation is temporary. On Friday, the hunting begins again, and hundreds of thousands more seals will die.
We passed one pup who had crawled into a small cave formed by ice. He hid his head as we approached, clearly terrified. I tried to talk softly to him, to let him know that it would be okay. But he just lay there, hiding his head. This three-week old seal pup had just seen hundreds of others beaten to death in front of him. To him, people now mean clubs and violence and pain.
Today, we filmed this horror—the tiny carcasses such a stark reminder that this is a slaughter for fur. They died by the thousands here, painfully, just to produce fur coats that no one needs.
On Friday, we leave for the second area of killing, and I know what we will see there. But I also know that we are close to ending this, and that we may never have to witness this kind of cruelty again.
As we get ready to leave for the remote area where this next phase will occur, please be a part of our team. Visit humanesociety.org/protectseals to find out what you can do to stop this cruelty forever, and help us spread the word.
Hovering Over Hell
Only Silence Remains
Posted March 24, 2009, 9 PM AST
This afternoon, we reached the scene of the commercial harp seal slaughter in the ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Our helicopter flew through gale force winds—slowed by massive gusts—to reach the carnage.
By the time we arrived, we had little fuel and almost no time to spend there before sundown. But it didn't take long for us to fully comprehend the atrocity happening on the ice below.
It's hard to write this, because it's hard to think about what I have just seen.
The blood was visible from the air, from 2,000 feet away. The carcasses were dumped—as they always are—left to rot in the blood of the slaughtered seals. These seals are killed for their fur in a pointless slaughter, all for vanity and fashion.
From the air, we could see the babies try to crawl away, to escape as the sealers bore down on them.
But they were no match for men armed with hakapiks and knives. In seconds, the sealers reached the defenseless pups, and beat the terrified animals to death.
We landed on the ice to observe the killing from there. We ran across the floe toward the area where the sealers were killing seals.
What was once the best place on Earth is now one of the worst. Seeing us, they stopped their grisly work, got back on their vessel and left the area.
The sealers know that the images of the slaughter are their undoing. They will do anything to prevent us from obtaining our evidence—including occasionally leaving a few survivors behind.
Two pups remained on the floe—alone and terrified, they were left to crawl through the blood and carcasses.
These animals were born in the beginning of March. Now, just three weeks later, they have been subjected to violence more obscene than most adult humans can fathom.
I take some small comfort in the knowledge that those two seals are still alive on that pan of ice because we were there today.
What remains of the harp seal nursery is the carnage, the devastation, and the complete absence of the sounds of the seals. What was once the best place on Earth is now one of the worst.
Rebecca Aldworth is director of Humane Society International Canada (HSI Canada). For more than a decade, she has observed firsthand Canada's commercial seal hunt—escorting more than 100 scientists, parliamentarians and journalists to the ice floes to bear witness to the largest marine mammal slaughter on Earth.
They will kill close to 300,000 this year, in a matter of a couple weeks.
