THE COLOURS OF
CANADA
Canada's black eye continues to draw international
condemnation....
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animal protection law from 1892 -
Act and demand a modern animal protection law go to
Petition IFAW
Together
with Peta together we want to tell the prime minister that
"fashion" is no justification for spilling baby seals'
blood.
It's that time
of year again: The ice floes off the Canadian coast are about to
turn red with the blood of the countless baby harp seals who are
slaughtered for their fur.
Words cannot describe the cruelty of the annual seal "hunt," which
is really more of a massacre and will begin in just a few days. To
stop this yearly atrocity, we must generate an international outcry
against the Canadian government. I hope that you will support
PETA's public call for an end to this slaughter by immediately
taking important action:
Petition PETA to Canadian prime minister Stephen
Harper
LATEST INFO 8
APRIL 07
Check out Rebecca’s report and her video clips at
following link.
-----
Original Message -----
From:
seals
seals
To:
for_the_seals@hotmail.co.uk
Sent:
Thursday,
March 29, 2007 7:34 PM
Subject:
Shocking
news: 270,000 seals to be hunted in Canada this
year
by Michel Comte 25 minutes ago
OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada's fisheries minister said Thursday 270,000
harp seals would be killed in its annual commercial hunt, deemed
"the largest marine mammal massacre in the world" by animal rights
groups.
|
|
The
harvest is down 65,000 from last year due to "poor ice conditions"
in seal breeding grounds in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence,
Minister Loyola Hearn said in a statement.
Up to 20 percent of the Atlantic herd usually nests on thick ice
floes in the southern Gulf region in February or March. But this
year authorities and animal rights groups found only slush and ice
fragments too small to support a newborn pup.
Ice floes in the northern Gulf and around Newfoundland province
where most of the seal hunting occurs remain in "good" condition,
the minister said.
"We realize mortality will be higher than normal this year (in the
southern Gulf)," a fisheries official said. "The ice continues to
deteriorate, but there are seals there."
In the past three years, one million seals have been killed in the
commercial hunt in eastern Canada.
Demonstrators in Europe and Canada have denounced the "cruelty" of
seal hunting.
But Ottawa maintains the hunt poses no threat to the seal
population. "This year's quota will not pose any long-term threat
to the herd," a fisheries official said.
"These decisions are guided by principles of conservation. I also
want to ensure that the people who depend on this resource for
their livelihood will benefit from it over the long-term," said
Minister Hearn.
Animal rights groups remained leery, out in force this month,
stripping naked in front of Canada's parliament in freezing
temperatures, dousing themselves in red paint to protest the seal
hunt and appealing to the public.
"We're calling on the (government) to take a precautionary approach
and stop this year's hunt," said Toni Vernelli of Greenpeace Canada
last week.
"Continuation of the commercial seal hunt cannot be reconciled with
the long-term conservation of the harp seal -- an ice-dependent
species which is already suffering critical habitat loss due to
global warming."
"A large percentage of the seal pups born in the northwest Atlantic
this year are dying as their habitat is destroyed," echoed Rebecca
Alderworth, director of Canadian wildlife issues for the US Humane
Society.
"We cannot allow the survivors of this ecological disaster to be
slaughtered to produce fashion items," she said, estimating that
more than 260,000 seal pups had perished due to climate
change.
The government acknowledged the plight of the sea mammals,
estimating 50 percent of pups in the southern Gulf did not survive,
in its quota calculations.
But Hearn, backed by hunters, fur industry representatives and
Inuit leaders, countered that opponents of seal hunting were
presenting a "biased" view of a practice that he called
"sustainable, economically viable and culturally
significant."
The Atlantic seal population has ballooned over the past three
decades to almost 5.5 million, he said.
Opening dates for the 2007 seal hunt will be announced in the
coming days, the minister said.
The government also said fleets that harvest more seals than
allotted will see their individual quota reduced by an equivalent
amount next season, noting that hunters killed 10,000 more seals
than prescribed in 2006.
In early March the
ice floes of Eastern Canada are a breathtaking vision: an endless
sea and sky filled with white as far as the eye can see. In one of
nature’s most beautiful spectacles, hundreds of thousands of baby
harp seals call out to their mothers, alone on the ice for the
first time.
But then the sealing ships arrive. What was once a scene of peace
and innocence becomes a makeshift factory of terror and cruelty as
the ice is covered in blood. These helpless baby seals, some as
young as two weeks old, are clubbed or shot to death for their fur.
Many will even be skinned alive or die trapped under the ice after
being injured.
I desperately need your help right now to stop this
inhumane slaughter.
Don’t
let DFO stop IFAW seal hunt
monitors
The
Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is trying to restrict the
monitoring of Canada’s commercial seal hunt by increasing the
distance hunt observers must remain from sealers from 10 to 20
metres.
IFAW monitors risk their lives each year by taking to the ice to
film the hunt, documenting the cruelty and alleged violations of
Marine Mammal Regulations and sharing the truth about the seal hunt
with the rest of the world.
If implemented, this increase will make documenting the seal hunt
difficult and often impossible. Please email the DFO today and tell
them NOT to increase the minimum distance to observe sealers.
- - - - - - -
From:
Tierschutz-Notruf@t-online.d
Date:
February 20, 2007
Protestaufruf
gegenRobben-Tötungen
mime-attachment
