Bloody slaughter in the Gulf
As I write this, I'm thinking of beautiful helpless baby harp seals, birthed only weeks ago in a magnificent magical world of ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Little do they know that within hours their brief lives will come to a bloody and horribly cruel end at the hands of heartless men who care nothing for Nature or living things.
The annual commercial Canadian seal slaughter is set to open a half hour before dawn on Friday, March 28. Sealing boats carrying men with murder in their hearts and cruel weapons in their hands are edging closer to the seal birthing grounds, the thick ice ahead of them opened up by Canadian Coast Guard ships to enable easy passage.
In a few short days the vicious massacre will be over and thousands of seals, many just weeks old, will have experienced brutality and terror, the likes of which we can only imagine. The Canadian government increased the harp seal quota to 275,000 this year so that sealers can inflict horror on 5,000 more seals than in 2007.
Almost all the seals targeted by men with clubs and spikes are younger than three months old and have not even eaten solid food yet or taken a swim in the ocean. These innocents are so trusting of humans, they will crawl into your lap on the ice or fall asleep next to you.
This insanity is subsidized by you and me - the Canadian taxpayer. Without our tax dollars the largest marine mammal slaughter on the planet would end. There may be another end in sight though. The European Union is on the verge of banning seal products and some countries - like Holland and Belgium - have already banned them. Europe is at the centre of the seal products distribution network for the big buyers - Russia, China and Norway. If the EU bans seal products, the slaughter will be over.
For the sealers, money from slaughtering seals is only a tiny bit of their incomes as most are commercial fishers. Their jobs are dirty, dangerous and dehumanizing. If they had played their cards right, they could have pushed for a license buy out and done well for themselves. Now, with an EU ban within grasp, their bargaining power is considerably less.
In his book, Sea of Slaughter, Farley Mowat cites historical accounts of the unimaginable abundance of life in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. So many fish that a bucket dropped over the side and hauled back up would be overflowing with fish; and harp seals in the millions, all species living in harmony in a perfectly balanced marine ecosystem.
Today, industrial fishing practices and greed have depleted the Gulf of St. Lawrence and destroyed the wonderful amazing complicated web of life. Seal numbers have dwindled from historical norms and the animals face an uncertain future if the killing doesn't stop. Even then, human activity has so altered the Earth's climate that the ice seals need to birth their young may not be here one day soon.
Take a few minutes to think about the cruel, gory and needless slaughter that will be in full swing when you wake up in the morning and imagine what you could do to help end this unjust assault on Nature. And give thanks to the activists who put themselves in harms way out on the ice to bear witness and document the killing.
Although this year the Canadian government is doing everything it can to prevent anyone witnessing the massacre. With the EU considering a ban, bloody skinned baby seal images on the front pages of European newspapers will surely sink the sealing industry. Journalists and observers are allowed permits each year to go out to the killing grounds. Those permits have been withheld, even now just hours before the opening of the "hunt". Observation of the seal slaughter is a right guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because the "hunt" occurs in public space.
For more information about the slaughter and what you can do:
Humane Society of the United States http://www.hsus.org/index-seals.html
International Fund for Animal Welfare http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx?oid=17767
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society http://www.seashepherd.org/
In Sea of Slaughter, Farley Mowat writes of an account by Professor J.B. Jukes who in 1840 went to the main sealing grounds. Jukes wrote, "One of the men hooked up a young seal with his gaffe. Its cries were precisely like those of a young child in the extremity of agony and distress, something between shrieks and convulsive sobbings . . . . I saw one poor wretch skinned while yet alive, and the body writhing in blood after being stripped of its pelt . . . ."
Not much has changed in more than a century and a half.