04/26/07 Drama on Newfoundland Ice
Animal Friends reports about the recent events in regard with the seal slaughter in Canada
Not caring much about many protests against the seal slaughter in Canada which during March took place all over the world, and also in Croatia, the slaughter began this year, too! However, not everything went according to a plan and how it was supposed to be. This year nature itself also started to defend 270,000 seal pups!
At this moment the scenery in Newfoundland looks like this: The rusty and dirty blood encrusted boats with sealers standing around in blood-stained and greasy clothing, puffing on cigarettes and flicking butts onto the clean ice while the floes are stained brown with the stink of human feces from the overboard toilets is a nauseating sight.
Watching this and feeling embittered because of the slaughter of seal pups, captain Paul Watson, the founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said: "These men are addicts and thugs. Uneducated, filthy, brutal lowlifes who inflict the most merciless cruelties upon seal pups and then whine and snivel when they get stuck in the ice and their tobacco addiction kicks in. And here we have the Canadian Coast Guard using Canadian tax dollars to ferry cigarettes out to these sadistic morons to keep them happy. It’s a bloody disgrace and it makes me ashamed to be a Canadian and even more ashamed that I’m a former Canadian Coast Guardsman."
Just beyond the horizon safe from the trapped sealing boats, a large herd of seals lie contentedly on the ice. There the seal pups grow stronger each day and this year many of them may have a chance to survive thanks to the weather. This year promises to be an economic disaster for many sealers but the government is committed to bailing them out.
Lies and Deceptions of Canadian Government
Desmond Adams, a seal hunter, was quoted on Saturday in the Newfoundland media as saying, "we all go out for the love of it rather than the money, which isn't there anymore," which means that the Canadian taxpayer is now currently paying the bill in millions of dollars to provide four full time ice-breakers. Some 400 sealers on about 100 small boats remain trapped in heavy ice off the Eastern coast of Newfoundland in one of the heaviest ice jams in memory. Unable to break the boats free, the Canadian Coast Guard has turned errand boys for the sealers flying in groceries to the stranded boats.
Over 60,000 seal pups are available under the quota of 275,000. Over 200,000 have already been clubbed or slaughtered. This does not take into account the estimated 250,000 pups killed by diminished ice conditions in the Gulf of St. Lawrence last month. Adams also said that the hunt continues not for the money but because the government wants it to continue. No one's getting rich from the seal hunt, he said, "at least not among the hunters. The price of pelts is down to about $55, about half what it used to be." These comments from a veteran sealer certainly contradict the position of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans that the seal hunt is an economic necessity.
Austria Also Gives Full Support to the Seals!
Austria yesterday voted unanimously in support of a complete ban on the importation, processing and distribution of all seal pelts from all species of seals. Austria thus joined Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Croatia in banning seal pelts with bills before the governments of all the other European nations pending. Austrian Minister for the Environment, Josef Proll, stated that he will also work for a ban on the EU-level.
The Canadian government has wasted countless thousands of taxpayer dollars sending delegations to Europe in support of Canada's commercial seal hunt. Yet Europeans are listening to the facts and the facts are that this is a cruel, unsustainable and wasteful hunt which must be stopped, and they want no part of it.
