Russia Bans Baby Seal Massacre, Canada Continues Killing Spree
March 19, 2009 · Print This Article
Baby seals are safe from being massacred in Russia, as the country announced Wednesday that it had banned hunting the animals. The announcement came weeks after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called it a “bloody industry”. Anti-seal hunting protesters had gathered in 20 cities and towns across Russia this week to urge a halt to the practice.
From Reuters:
“The bloody sight of the hunting of seals, the slaughter of these defenseless animals which you cannot even call a real hunt, is banned in our country, just as well as in most developed countries, and is a serious step to protect the biodiversity of the Russian Federation,” the minister for natural resources, Yuri Trutnev, said in a statement.
Seals inhabit Russia’s White Sea region in the Arctic. As in Canada and Norway, hunters target the fluffy baby seals — also known as “whitecoats” for their highly valued snow-white fur — in early spring and club thousands to death.
Meanwhile, the annual Canadian baby seal killing extravaganza is set to begin later this month. Green Daily gives us some gruesome details:
I mean, how can sealers still be allowed to:
* “hunt” a couple hundred thousand baby seals
* use a club like a caveman (i.e. hit them with a big blunt stick)
* only half kill them
* strip the skins off their painfully still-breathing bodies, and
* sell each pelt for a rocking $30 — Canadian dollars, to add insult to injury!Btw, did I mention that hunters kill the baby seals? In front of the mother seals? Often the seal pups are just a few weeks old, and some haven’t even been in the water. Apparently that soft baby fur is what rich old ladies and vain men like best.
So, what can you do to help? Sign this online PETA petition and then join celebrity chef Cat Cora in boycotting Canadian seafood to send Canada the message that we won’t tolerate the continuation of this cruel practice. Sign a pledge at the Humane Society of the United States and then get as many of your friends and family to sign as you can. The person who gathers the most signatures will win a visit to New York City to hang with Cat and have your photo taken by photographer Nigel Barker of America’s Next Top Model.
Learn more about the killing of these innocent, fluffy, ridiculously cute animals at the Humane Society’s ‘Protect Seals 2009’ website.
Link [Reuters] + [Green Daily] + [HSUS]
Photo credit: HSUS, MyPointIs.net
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What is it about this “saving the seal” thing?
There is no need to save the seals, they are reproducing at a high rate! To the Norwegians, seals are as cute as mice and rats. Can you people please explain to me when you became five year old kids, crying your eyes out about the killing of cute animals? Do you cry like this when you hear the numbers of rats or mice being killed every year in your own country? To be able to use the seals to something- fur- is more than you are able to, when you kill mice and rats, don’t you get it? To kill seals, then, is a win-win: you balance the numbers of them, and you get a nice product at the same time. Can you perhaps start a nice campaign where you wants to save the rats and mice of your country from the relentless hunting of them? Do you read me? Five year old kids cry when “cute animals” are killed! Five year old kids! Doh. The seals needs no saving. Are you five year olds, or not?
Better hunting killing Canadian and Norwegian people they are reproducing also at a high rate – Stop killing Animal, kill people
I understand that maybe the killing of seals helps control the seal polulation, but regardless of whether you agree with the need to kill the seals or not, I think the main concern is the manner in which the seals are slain. I think that we are intelligent enough to undersrtand pain and that the gruesome manner in which these animals are killed or skinned alive and left to die is not the right thing to do. If seal hunters are concerned about the seal polulation or even their own livelyhood then maybe they should assess they way they hunt and kill and at least attempt a “humane” way to end the seals life. I know this is controversial in itself, because people disagree on what is truly humane or not, but I think we can all agree that there are things that are CLEARLY INHUMANE and plain cruel. Any person who can justify torturing an animal should endure the same pain they inflict on these animals.