Canadian Seafood Boycott necessary to end brutality - seal clubbing

[Annces]

Hilary Foshee - Fort Collins, CO


Many people are under the impression that the commercial slaughter of harp seals in North America was permanently halted back in the 1980s. Unfortunately, the seal hunt still occurs every spring, and it is the largest mass slaughter of marine mammals in the world.

The hunt takes place on the ice floes off the eastern Coast of Canada near Newfoundland. In 2008 the Canadian government will allow 270,000 harp seals to be killed, although the actual number of seals killed is probably far greater. Over the previous three years, more than 1 million harp seals, virtually all pups between the ages of two weeks and three months, were killed during the Canadian seal hunt.

The seals are hunted primarily for export of their skins (both leather and fur pelts) and to a much lesser extent for oil and meat. The Canadian government subsidizes the slaughter and defends it as a way to bring back depleted stocks of cod on the Eastern seaboard. However, harp seals have a diverse diet that includes not only cod (about 3 percent of the diet), but also significant predators of cod such as squid. The scientific community agrees that over-fishing is the actual cause of depleted fish populations.

There is nothing humane about the way these animals are killed. Sealers use wooden bats, hooked clubs called hakapiks, and guns to kill the seals. A veterinary report from 2001 detailed post mortem examinations of hunted seals and showed that sealers often failed to kill or even render the seals unconscious prior to skinning. Seals are members of the Order Carnivora, and therefore, share similar levels of intelligence and neurological development as dogs and cats.

As grim as this situation is, there are ways that you can help to end the seal hunt. Go to the Humane Society of the United States (www.hsus.org), watch its video documenting the seal hunt and sign the pledge to boycott Canadian seafood (Red Lobster). The seafood boycott targets the people who slaughter the seals, off-season fishermen who make only a small fraction of their annual incomes from sealing. Additionally, you may search for restaurants that have pledged to boycott Canadian seafood. Thank you to Bisetti's restaurant in Old Town Fort Collins for participating in the boycott.

Web sites for Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (www.seashepherd.org) and The International Fund for Animal Welfare (www.ifaw.org) also offer ways to help.

Hilary Foshee lives in Fort Collins.



http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080423/OPINION04/804230317

(Also, the European Union is considering a ban on imports of seal products, and this could be the true end for the Newfoundland seal clubbing industry).

Many of the seals killed are only a few weeks old, called "beaters" because their coats are changing.

[flvegan]

1. And it's working.

Check out this article from Canada's National Post:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/04/18/the-millions-ottawa-spends-subsidizing-the-seal-hunt.aspx

"Fourthly, there is the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) led boycott that is largely responsible for the inflation adjusted $465-million drop in the value of Canadian exports of snow crabs — the main seafood export to the United States from Canada’s sealing provinces — since April, 2005. The value of 2007 snow crab exports is 44% lower than it was in 2004, the year prior to the boycott.
HSUS has to date persuaded almost 3,600 U.S. businesses to participate, including heavy hitters Publix (annual sales $24-billion), Whole Foods ($7-billion), WinCo Foods, Lowe’s Foods, Harris Teeter ($3-billion each) and smaller, seafood-driven ones like Legal Sea Foods ($400-million). Sealing creates less than 1% of the value of the sealing provinces’ fishery. Sacrifice 99% for the sake of 1%. Now there’s a business plan!"

[Annces]

4. I saw that one

A great article.

[mainegreen]

2. Red Lobster is an American company.

[Annces]

3. Red Lobster imports Canadian Seafood

They are a major buyer.

"Red Lobster is owned by Darden restaurants, a corporation that purchases millions of dollars worth of seafood from Canada each year, and by default, is supporting the deaths of hundreds of thousands of baby seals annually. As the most popular seafood chain in America, Red Lobster has the power to directly pressure the Canadian government to stop the brutal and unnecessary seal hunts. "

http://www.wspa-usa.org/pages/615_red_lobster_refusing_to_protect_seals.cfm

HSUS info
http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/protect_seals/protect_seals_what_you_can_do/