Please Do Not Tap On the Glass

As I read Tipping Point’s post about the Cape Breton seal slaughter I felt despair. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE? How can you stand over a baby seal with a baseball bat and beat it to death? for money? That is exactly like one of your neighbors herding together all the neighborhood pets and beating them to death because he was paid to do it by some sinister human. There’s no difference between your pet and those baby seals. Make the connection, people, and start giving a damn.

The seal slaughter started yesterday on Hay Island in Canada’s Cape Breton. The Atlantic Canadian Ant-sealing Coalition got word just yesterday from the government:

… Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans that Nova Scotia’s new Environment Minister, David Morse, has authorized a commercial hunt of grey seals to occur on Hay Island again this year. The slaughter is set to begin on Wednesday, February 4 and will run until March 14, 2009, or until there are no pups left alive, whichever comes first. Fishermen will be allowed to kill up to 2,200 grey seal pups. When questioned as to how many pups are actually on the island, the response was “more than last year”. Last year fishermen were allowed to kill up to 2,500 when in actual fact there were only approximately 1,400 pups on the island. Clearly, this is not a conservation plan – it is a plan for extermination.

Hay Island, part of the Scaterie Island Protected Wilderness Area in Cape Breton, was the scene of a horrific mass slaughter last year when Nova Scotia fishermen armed with crude wooden bats and boxcutters descended on the island and within just a few short days had bludgeoned to death over 1,200 grey seal pups just a few weeks old. The slaughter on Hay Island marked the first time the killing of grey seal pups in Nova Scotia was witnessed and documented by a third party. Humane Society International and Atlantic Canadian Anti-Sealing Coalition were present on the island and distributed to the public videotape evidence of the cruelty involved in the grey seal hunt.

Why is the Canadian government allowing this slaughter? According to the Anti-sealing Coalition: “Department of Fisheries and Ocean’s own scientists say there is no direct evidence that seals negatively impact cod stocks, and they simply do not know if reducing seal populations will aid in cod recovery. Seals eat a variety of fish, most of which are not commercially fished in Canada. Cod accounts for only 2 percent of their diet. In fact, seals eat predators of cod, which is beneficial to cod, not detrimental.”

You can do something about this atrocity, you can make your voice heard.

Take a few minutes and write to the Canadian ministers responsible for this slaughter. Everything you need is on the Anti-sealing Coalition’s page. It just takes a few minutes of your time to do something positive to save some of these animals from a horrible, senseless death.

Please.

s.