The Green Rocket

Many issues concerning seal hunting have come up in the past week. The following is a summary of activists and government sanctions that are beginning to sway the market demand of seal products; especially that of young seals (under a year old with silver fur soft enough to make clothing from). Every year Canada prepares for its annual seal hunt; now activists also set forth every March 15th to protest against it. PlanetSave has a great list that features five ways you can participate in the international protest against seal hunting.

Rebecca Aldworth, who has attended the seal hunt for 11 years in a row, will photograph the seal hunt and send live updates through the Humane Society website and via Twitter (@humanesociety or #sealhunt09). She is a representative of Humane Society Canada and is in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence to document the commercial killing of “over 300,000 young seals”.

I put that last part in quotes because I’m hoping this isn’t a misuse of media-spurring presumptions (opposed to truths). Of the possible hunted quota just over 300,ooo seals, it is a near impossibility that this amount will all be “young”. More numbers to put this into perspective are presented below, but before I get flamed for defending what’s going on here, what is true is that seals are killed in the hundreds of thousands in Canada every year… period. Whether these massacres are sanctioned or not by the government doesn’t make them any less heart wrenching. That doesn’t change the fact that over-population of any creature in a certain area is detrimental to other factors that need to be considered on a priority basis.

I’m no professional when it comes to what is deemed necessary and what is not of course, that is why activists are so important to pushing forth change to any cause. Much the same as it is for drug importing, illegal whaling, ivory harvesting… anything that has a buyer… has a gatherer and a seller. If the government stands to gain on profits from merchandise sale done legally by covering its eyes to how the process in between happens, then of course they’ll opt to make money. Now, if the European Union passes the ban on seal products–a discussion that began in January–that might change the whole equation of what Canada deems reasonable.

A ban on seal products means that a significant market of twenty-seven countries would be off limits to Canadian seal hunters which represents an obvious blow to the industry and a welcome development for champions of animal rights everywhere. (January 22, 2009)

What is needed is for other governments to take Russia’s seal hunting policy as an example (priority Canada of course as the leader of these activities) by making it illegal for hunters to kill seals less than a year old. This information from the previously linked article pretty much sums it all up:

However, Canada has faced mounting international pressure to shut down their seal hunt, which last year claimed the lives of 207,000 seals. Besides protests, they’ve faced a distinct decline in demand for seal pelts. A European Union ban on seal products could render the Canadian hunt unprofitable and result in its demise. (March 21, 2009)

However, for some reason Ottawa has set a new quota of 338,200 seals for this year’s East Coast hunt. This is an increase of 55,000 animals from last year. Federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea based the decision on “the advice of scientists to ensure the seal population is maintained.” (March 21, 2009) The federal Fisheries Department estimates the size of the harp, grey and hooded seal herds on the East Coast at about 6.4 million animals. Now, if readers can pause a second and hold back their rage, the positive side (if you can call it that) is that even with last year’s quota being 283,200 seals, fewer than that were actually killed. On this merit alone, it’s beyond me why a RAISED quota is even being discussed!

The people of Spain have an eye-catching way to get their message across in the most media-gathering way possible: Take off your clothes and cover yourself in red paint (March 15, 2009). Kudos to Spain and the 100 activists there who truly helped spread the word through the media outlets that covered them along with the topic they hoped to bring to the forefront of discussion.

[View on YouTube - In Spanish]

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