Russian Archangel bloody seal pup cull halted (ice sheets to thin to walk on global warming)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3542189.ece

From The Times
March 13, 2008

Tony Halpin in Moscow

The blood of baby seals stains the snow red during the traditional cull in the Archangel region of northern Russia each March. But the slaughter of thousands of seals, many only a few days old, has been halted this year amid protests by celebrities and environmental groups, and calls for hunting to be outlawed.

Officials in Archangel insisted that the cull had been cancelled to protect the hunters, not the seals, because ice sheets close to the White Sea were too thin to walk on.



The decision, however, came at a time of heightened protests by animal rights groups. Russian television broadcast a demonstration in Archangel by a group of celebrities and prominent journalists against the practice.

Hunters were shown clubbing baby seals with ice picks, leaving them to bleed to death before they were skinned for their white fur. One report showed a seal struggling for life in icy water surrounded by its own blood.

“They are very much like human babies - they cry and call for their mum the same way,” one protester, Laima Vaikule, a Latvian pop singer, said. Viktor Gusev, a sports commentator who was also protesting, said: “I am sure that there is need for a serious draft law to put an end to those killings.”

About 335,000 people have signed a petition against the hunting of baby seals, according to Oleg Mitvol, the powerful deputy chief of the Russian environmental monitoring agency. It noted that the killing of the youngest seals, known as whitecoats, “is authorised only in Russia”.

FULL story at link.

[I work for workers]

1. The irony is killing me. nt

[BlueJazz]

2. At least this proves that we are not the only ones who have no-good-pieces-of human-garbage...

...walking around in their country.