In the past few weeks Canada's infamous and bloody annual harp seal hunt is hitting its peak, with more than 100,000 seal pups already clubbed or shot. Responding to immense public concern, the international media has been on hand to document the carnage. On April 5, the New York Times ( http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/international/americas/05SEAL.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=b2b93531d914961f&ex=1082001600 ) described graphically how sealers bear down on helpless seal pups, and "with one or two blows to the head, they crush the skulls, sometimes leaving the young animals in convulsions. The men drag the bodies to waiting fishing vessels or skin them on the spot, leaving a crisscross of bloody trails on the slowly melting ice."A few days later, guest columnist Colman McCarthy wrote in the Christian Science Monitor ( http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0407/p09s03-coop.html ) that "[t]he Canadian seal hunt is the largest mass killing of marine mammals anywhere. No wild animal is as defenseless as the slow-moving and guileless seal. Canadian government figures show that 96 percent of the 286,238 seals reported killed last year were 12 days to 12 weeks old – pups too young to swim or eat on their own."On April 7, the BBC ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3609169.stm ) quoted an activist who reported, "We filmed and witnessed seals being skinned alive right in front of us,"and a Newsweek columnist ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4687356/ ) called the seal hunt "An Easter Massacre."
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
- Contact your two U.S. Senators, and ask them to sign on to S. Res. 269, authored by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), condemning the Canadian seal massacre. You can look up the names of your U.S. Senators at www.Congress.org , and you can contact them by calling 202-224-3121 or writing to:
The Honorable (first name, last name)
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510 - Also, let the Canadian Tourism Commission know that you'll vacation elsewhere. You can email them at: http://www.travelcanada.ca/tc_redesign/app/en/ca/contact.do.
For more information on The HSUS campaign to end the seal hunt visit http://www.hsus.org/seals.
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