Tag: Seals

HSUS Activists Reportedly Not Happy at Being Caught on Film

Pro-seal hunt filmmaker Raoul Jomphe claims that representatives with the Humane Society of the United States were displeased that the caught them on film ignoring the suffering of a seal that the animal rights activists were using as a prop for a fund raising video.

According to the Ottawa Citizen,

In the documentary . . . the animal rights activists pulled the dying seal out of the water as it tried to escape, and continued filming their promotional video. It is not known how the seal was wounded.

According to Jomphe and his documentary, the HSUS activists filmed for over an hour while the seal lay suffering.

Interviewed in Jomphe’s film, HSUS activist Rebecca Aldworth says she only had the seal’s well-being in mind,

I asked somebody to pull the seal out, because at that point I was thinking there might be a chance of getting the seal back to land. If this seal could still crawl, an hour later, could still swim, maybe there was a chance we could bring the seal back to the Atlantic Veterinary College and save the seal.

Jomphe said that based on the condition of the seal, he would have humanely killed it rather than allow it to continue to suffer.

Source:

Activists Angry at being caught on tape. The Ottawa Citizen, March 5, 2007.

Activists Target Red Lobster Over Canadian Seal Hunt

Animal rights activists upset over the return of seal hunting in Canada are targeting Red Lobster for protests.

Red Lobster’s crime is that it buys a lot of seafood from Canada, and the activists want Red Lobster to observe their boycott of Canadian seafood until that country agrees to stop the seal hunt.

A letter posted by Harpseals.Org volunteer Sue Hirsch to AR-NEWS in July read,

As you may know, HSUS had a protest at almost all the Red Lobster
restaurants across the US and Canada last month on June 25th, 2005.
This Saturday (and for every month now on) Harpseals.org along with
Seashepherd.org will be having the same kind of protests at as many Red
Lobsters as we can until the massacres stop.

Please go to www.harpseals.org <http://www.harpseals.org> for more
information and updates.

OUR GROUP WILL BE AT THE RED LOBSTER RESTAURANT OFF ROSE AVENUE IN
OXNARD AND WE NEED MORE VOLUNTEERS TO HELP US! WE JUST STAND WITH SIGNS
(NON-VIOLENT) FROM HSUS,etc., AND TELL PEOPLE (who want to listen) THAT
RED LOBSTER IS THE LARGEST PURCHASER OF CANADIAN SEAFOOD AND IF THEY
WOULD STOP PURCHASING THE SEAFOOD, WE COULD END THESE BARBARIC SLAUGHTERS).

Please come out to support us.

I haven’t eaten at Red Lobster in a long time, but the activist’s protest — not to mention Red Lobster’s Create Your Own Summer Seafood Feast special — might be just enough to send me there this weekend.

Source:

Canadian Baby Harp Seal Protest Oxnard July 30th, 2005. Sue Hirsch, Harpseals.Org.

Paul Watson Compares Seal Hunt to Holocaust

As Canada announced in March that it would proceed with a seal hunt this spring in which up to 320,000 seals would be killed, animal rights and environmental extremist Paul Watson compared the seal hunt to the Holocaust.

According to Toronto Star columnist Kelly Toughill, Watson was responding a Newfoundland Memorial University student on whether or not Watson and seal hunters could reach a compromise. Watson’s reply was that,

I would not have compromised with the Nazi over the fate of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto and I do not believe in compromising with the thugs who kill these seals.

In a response on his web site, Watson countered,

I think this is a good analogy. It is not a question of comparing Jews to seals. It is all about compromising with evil. I, in fact, honour the defenders of the Warsaw Ghetto. They were brave men and women who stood up to tyranny with courage against hopeless odds. In that movement against the NaziÂ’s, those who compromised led their people to defeat and death. The statement was about not giving in to compromise and was not a criticism of the Jewish struggle. If I offended the sealers with the analogy, then that was my point. If I offended anyone of the Jewish faith, then I apologize for the unintended slight.

Yet more evidence that Godwin’s Law extends will past the confines of the Internet.

Sources:

The big lie about the harp seal hunt. Kelly Toughill, The Toronto Star, March 26, 2005.

Response to Kelly Toughill of the Toronto Star. Paul Watson, March 28, 2005.

Senate Resolution Condemning Canadian Seal Hunt Recommended by Senate Foreign Relations Committee

According to a press release by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee has recommended that the full Senate consider a resolution condemning the resumption of the commercial seal hunt in Canada. According to the Senate web site on the bill, however, no action has been taken on the bill other than the addition of several co-sponsors.

Regardless, the resolution was introduced in November 2003 by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), and read, in part,

Whereas the persistence of this cruel and needless commercial hunt is inconsistent with the well-earned international reputation of Canada: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate urges the Government of Canada to end the commercial hunt on seals that opened in the waters off the east coast of Canada on November 15, 2003.

In its press release, IFAW president Fred O’Regan said of the proposed resolution,

This move illustrates that the international opposition to the Canadian seal hunt is not a fringe opinion, but a worldwide consensus that ranges from the halls of government to the man on the street. The issues are the same as they were when IFAW began, 35 years ago, to stop the hunt. Killing baby seals doesn’t make sense economically, ecologically or in regard to the humane treatment of animals.

It is unclear how O’Regan makes the leap that a Senate committee recommending that a proposed resolution go to the full Senate for a vote represents proof of “a worldwide consensus” on the Canadian seal hunt.

The full text of the resolution can be read here.

Source:

U.S. Senate Moves Closer to Condemning Canadian Seal Hunt. Press Release, International Fund for Animal Welfare, May 3, 2004.

U.S. Senate Resolution 269 — Condemnation of Candian Seal Hunt

Whereas on November 15, 2003, the Government of Canada opened a commercial hunt on seals in the waters off the east coast of Canada; (Introduced in Senate)

SRES 269 IS

108th CONGRESS

1st Session

S. RES. 269

Urging the Government of Canada to end the commercial seal hunt that opened on November 15, 2003.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

November 20, 2003

Mr. LEVIN (for himself and Ms. COLLINS, Mr. LIEBERMAN, Mr. REED, Mr. LAUTENBERG, Mr. DODD, Mr. WYDEN, Mr. JEFFORDS, and Mr. KENNEDY) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations

RESOLUTION

Urging the Government of Canada to end the commercial seal hunt that opened on November 15, 2003.

Whereas on November 15, 2003, the Government of Canada opened a commercial hunt on seals in the waters off the east coast of Canada;

Whereas an international outcry regarding the plight of the seals hunted in Canada resulted in the 1983 ban by the European Union of whitecoat and blueback seal skins, and the subsequent collapse of the commercial seal hunt in Canada;

Whereas the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 (16 U.S.C. 1361 et seq.) bars the import into the United States of any seal products;

Whereas in February 2003, the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans in Canada authorized the highest quota for harp seals in Canadian history, allowing nearly 1,000,000 seals to be killed over a 3-year period;

Whereas harp seal pups can be legally hunted in Canada as soon as they have begun to molt their white coats at approximately 12 days of age;

Whereas 97 percent of the seals culled in the 2003 slaughter were pups between just 12 days and 12 weeks of age, most of which had not yet eaten their first solid meal or learned to swim;

Whereas a 2001 report by an independent team of veterinarians invited to observe the hunt by the International Fund for Animal Welfare concluded that the seal hunt failed to comply with basic animal welfare regulations in Canada and that governmental regulations regarding humane killing were not being respected or enforced;

Whereas the 2001 veterinary report concluded that as many as 42 percent of the seals studied were likely skinned while alive and conscious;

Whereas the commercial slaughter of seals in the Northwest Atlantic is inherently cruel, whether the killing is conducted by clubbing or by shooting;

Whereas many seals are shot in the course of the hunt, but escape beneath the ice where they die slowly and are never recovered, and these seals are not counted in official kill statistics, making the actual kill level far higher than the level that is reported;

Whereas the commercial hunt for harp and hooded seals is not conducted by indigenous peoples of Canada, but is a commercial slaughter carried out by nonnative people from the East Coast of Canada for seal fur, oil, and penises (used as aphrodisiacs in some Asian markets);

Whereas the fishing and sealing industries in Canada continue to justify the expanded seal hunt on the grounds that the seals in the Northwest Atlantic are preventing the recovery of cod stocks, despite the lack of any credible scientific evidence to support this claim;

Whereas 2 Canadian Government marine scientists reported in 1994 that the true cause of cod depletion in the North Atlantic was over-fishing, and the consensus among the international scientific community is that seals are not responsible for the collapse of cod stocks;

Whereas harp and hooded seals are a vital part of the complex ecosystem of the Northwest Atlantic, and because the seals consume predators of commercial cod stocks, removing the seals might actually inhibit recovery of cod stocks;

Whereas certain ministries of the Government of Canada have stated clearly that there is no evidence that killing seals will help groundfish stocks to recover; and

Whereas the persistence of this cruel and needless commercial hunt is inconsistent with the well-earned international reputation of Canada: Now, therefore, be it

    Resolved, That the Senate urges the Government of Canada to end the commercial hunt on seals that opened in the waters off the east coast of Canada on November 15, 2003.