| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Elaine1234 |
Posted - 03/24/2007 : 18:04:56
Hello:
I would just like to let everyone know that I have a petition currently In circulation and It will be ongoing Indefinitely so as to stop the seal hunt that goes on In Canada every year, so for all those people that would like to see the Canadian seal hunt end for good and to try and stop It from happening again next year please go ahead and stop by and sign my petition.
I thank everyone who signs every signature does count and hopefully together we can end this cruelty once and for all.
Best Regards,
Elaine
Please go to this web page If you wish to support a worthy cause and pass on to everyone you know
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/yearlyhunt
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| 2 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Elaine1234 |
Posted - 04/08/2007 : 15:18:09
Hi Mike:
As I read this I am very sad that this barbaric act seems to still continue year after year I have contacted both these groups thank you so much.
Have you signed my petition If not please go ahead and do so.
The seals and I thank you |
| MikeEvans |
Posted - 04/06/2007 : 13:33:53
Long but worth reading...
Mike
Slaughtered for fashion
By Liz Jones
April 05, 2007 12:00
THE world's cruellest cull is once again under way as Canadian fishermen
began their annual festival of slaughter - clubbing and shooting tens of
thousands of seal pups around the Gulf of St Lawrence.
Once again, the world will recoil in horror at the spectacle of men
battering young seals to death, before skinning the still-warm bodies for
the pelt that will be turned into a fashionable accessory for the
unthinking or uncaring.
And this year there is a double horror. Thanks to global warming, the ice
that should provide a solid base for the pups in their first few weeks of
life has melted weeks early.
As a result, they are either tipped into the water when the sea swells, or
fall through the gaps in the slush. There, lacking the ability to swim,
they die.
It was estimated that by the end of last week more than 90 per cent of the
pups born in the southern part of the gulf had perished - approximately
260,000 seals.
Hovering above the scene in a helicopter with a monitoring group from an
American animal welfare charity, it became clear that we were watching an
ecological catastrophe taking place before our eyes.
And yet still the hunters will continue with their barbaric mission,
picking off every remaining pup still alive.
To help them locate the survivors, government planes will be despatched to
scour the ice and, as soon as any pups are spotted, the co- ordinates will
be radioed back to the coastguard, who will lead the fishing boats to the
location.
Not even the destruction of the seal's habitat, it seems, can stop the
wholesale slaughter.
As a fashion writer who has campaigned against the resurgence of fur on
the catwalk, the scenes I witnessed during my time in Canada sickened and
appalled me.
I really don't know how this practice can be called a "hunt". (At least
foxes can run: seal pups can't even crawl.)
And actually, when I speak to one of the fishermen, he calls it a
"harvest".
"Seals are like fish," he said. "There is no difference."
This is plainly ridiculous.
Seals are intelligent, inquisitive creatures. Watch them through a hole in
the ice and they do a double-take when they spot you, and return, moments
later, to stare with inquisitive eyes.
One seal claws at the ice as it tries to escape
Yet to the fisherman around the coast of Newfoundland, they are simply a
threat to local fish stocks; a menace to be eradicated by any means
possible.
I wish I could say such callous indifference was surprising. But even
before I had been flown over the ice, the hypocrisy of the Canadian
government had already prepared me for what lay ahead.
Before I was allowed to enter Canada, I had to sign a special visa form
which stated that I would not "touch or pick up" a seal, because that
would make it stressed. (I wonder what smashing its skull with a 'hakapik'
- a club with a useful spike on the end - would make it?)
I also had to agree that I would not try to rescue an injured seal. (Last
year, on a visit to Newfoundland to protest against the cull, Sir Paul
McCartney had to return home before the killing started because he
couldn't trust himself not to intervene.)
I even had to agree to keep 20 metres away from the fishermen.
I don't know who this last edict was meant to protect - them, or me?
Last year, an angry mob, made up mostly of the wives of the fishermen,
attacked an animal welfare vehicle monitoring the cull and forced it off
the road.
Such is local resentment towads those who publicise the slaughter that, on
leaving the helicopter, I was warned to hide my notebook and camera in
case locals got wind of the fact I was a journalist.
It seems our pilot had been very brave to fly us out over the ice.
Yet last week, the Canadian government was busy trying to persuade the
world that the hunt was humane and necessary and sustainable.
An 11-strong delegation, headed by special ambassador Loyola Sullivan,
travelled to the EU to plead their case, before turning up at Westminster
to meet MPs. (Britain, unlike Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg, has yet to
impose a ban on seal products.)
Sullivan was full of platitudes, stressing the hunt was no more cruel than
an abattoir, and pointing out that very young seals can no longer be
killed.
Although it is true that the killing of "white coats" - newborn pups with
thick, white fur - has been banned since 1983, a pup can still be
slaughtered when it is only 12 days old, just as it starts to moult (these
are called "ragged jackets"); or when it is a "beater" (still under four
weeks old and unable to swim properly).
But because the hunt is so remote, it is impossible to regulate or
monitor. The atrocities that take place are almost too horrendous to
document.
Although some pups are shot, the vast majority are clubbed. This is
because clubbing is cheaper and doesn't spoil the quality of the pelt.
Even in good condition, a pelt is worth just $US 78 (
36). Yet so many are slaughtered that for the fishermen in Newfoundland,
the annual cull nets
13 million.
Pelts are exported to Norway, Russia, China and South Korea to be made
into fashion garments that are sold all over the world.
But because public hostility is growing towards the seal cull,
unscrupulous dealers often deliberately mislabel seal fur, claiming it is
rabbit, or even fake fur.
One thing is certain: with demand for fur of all kinds running high on the
back of its renewed popularity on the catwalk, the Canadian fishermen can
be sure of a vibrant market for this year's "harvest" - though with pups
so few in number, the competition between fishing boats will be fierce,
resulting in even more frenzied killing.
I ask the animal welfare observers accompanying me, who have witnessed
such scenes many times before, to tell me which aspect of the slaughter
they find most distressing.
One tells me how she has witnessed pups being dragged by hooks across the
ice, and once saw a pup take 45 minutes to die after being clubbed on the
head.
"She was on the ice, just gurgling and crying, and there was nothing we
could do to intervene."
Another described how, when the hunt begins, the female seals all try to
keep an eye on their babies until fear drives them into the water.
Once the boats have gone, they all come back onto the ice, calling for
their pups.
They waddle up to the huge, steaming pile of offal that is left to rot on
the ice (seal blubber is virtually worthless), and they actually sort
gently through the bodies, trying to find their babies.
"The sound the mothers make is so terrible, so plaintive, it haunts you
for ever," she said. Perhaps the sound of the mothers wailing should be
played at the next fashion show given by the likes of Christopher Bailey
at Burberry, or Julien Macdonald, or Karl Lagerfeld, or even our own
Amanda Wakeley.
These designers will protest that they don't use seal fur - only silver
fox or mink.
That's not the point.
By using animal fur of any kind, they make this sort of brutality
acceptable and chic and normal, and lovely and desirable.
Having witnessed the seals' desperate situation first-hand, I can vouch it
is no such thing. It is utterly repellent.
For information on what you can do to stop the commercial seal hunt,
visit www.protectseals. org or www.hsus.org
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