Click here for BACKGROUND TO PREVIOUS YEARS OF THE CANADIAN SEAL HUNT

LIVE FROM THE ICE - from the journal of Rebecca Aldworth, HSI's Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues and long time observer of the seal hunt

On Monday 23 March 2009, the annual commercial seal slaughter began off the East coast of Canada.

Flying in the face of the best available science and common sense, Canada will this year allow seal hunters to kill 280,000 seals, an increase of 5,000 from 2008. Most of these will be just days or weeks old, and forced to endure incomprehensible cruelty. The last time this many seals were killed, the harp seal population was reduced by as much as two thirds within a decade.

Independent scientists have warned that reckless kill levels authorised by the Canadian government, paired with the impacts of climate change on the ice dependent harp seals, poses a serious threat to the survival of harp seal populations.

In recent years, global warming has caused the sea ice in the northwest Atlantic to diminish dramatically. In some key whelping areas, up to 100 percent mortality has been estimated for seal pups as the sea ice melted before they were old enough to survive in open water. As the very same time as this has occurred, the Canadian government has authorised historic high quotas for harp seals, with more than one million seals killed in the past four years alone. At a time when the Canadian government should be taking action to preserve harp seals, it instead seems determined to wipe them out.

The hunt is opposed by the overwhelming majority of people in Canada and around the world, and governments are increasingly taking action on behalf of their citizens. In 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a unanimous resolution calling on the Canadian government to end the commercial seal hunt. In recent years, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, France, Croatia, Italy, Mexico and Panama have either ended their trade in seal products or announced their intentions to do so. In 2006, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for an EU wide ban of seal products, and the Council of Europe called on its 46 member states to promote initiatives aimed at prohibiting the trade in seal products.

The momentum is now building. Within weeks, the European Union will vote on a proposal to prohibit trade in seal products - a move many believe could spell the end of Canada's commercial seal slaughter. This month, Russia announced a complete ban on the slaughter of seals younger than 1 year old. In the United States, a boycott of Canadian seafood products that will continue until the seal hunt is ended has gained the support of more than 5,000 establishments and 600,000 individuals, costing the Canadian economy many times the value of the commercial seal hunt. 

LIVE FROM THE ICE

Rebecca Aldworth, HSI’s Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues, documents her eleventh trip to the ice floes of Canada. Through her journal, witness the cruelty of the seal hunt and the devastating effects of diminishing habitat to the harp seals, and find out why this slaughter MUST be stopped. Read more.

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