04/07/17 Last Year 66,000 Seals Bludgeoned for Fur!
Bloody massacre in Canada: New annual slaughter of baby seals about to begin
- Appeal to Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau to stop subsidies for seal hunting
In 2016, during the annual commercial seal massacre on the eastern coast of Canada, more than 66,000 seals were killed or bludgeoned. In just a few days, the violent slaughter of thousands of baby seals will begin again, in spite of rising opposition around the world.
Seal hunters have already begun killing some of the adult seals, and very soon they will move on to slaughtering thousands of baby seals. Most of them will be just a few weeks old when they will be stripped of their fur, while, as it often happens, the other seals look on in horror. Many of these pups will not even have had their first solid meal or learned how to swim before they are brutally killed.
Some of these sensitive and social animals will be shot, while the others will have their frail skulls crushed in by hakapiks. After they are killed, the sealers will drag their bodies over the ice and then skin them. In order to avoid damaging their fur while they are being dragged, the hunters will stick metal hooks in their eyes, cheeks or mouths.
PETA and other animal rights organisations across the world, including Animal Friends Croatia, have already managed to drastically reduce the global market for seal fur. In Croatia, importing seals fur has been banned since 2006, and a ban on raising animals for fur, adopted in 2007, entered into force this year.
Due to bans on seal-derived products in the EU, Russia, the USA, and recently in Switzerland, there are only a handful of countries left that are willing to buy the bloody products of this massacre. Attempts to push seals products into the Chinese market and legal challenges to EU bans have ended in failure. If it were not for the millions of dollars in subsidies from Canadian taxpayers, the Canadian commercial slaughter of seals would have already collapsed.
There is hope that Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, who has progressive views on a number of issues, might signal a turning point in this international campaign. PETA has already contacted him urging him to stop subsidies for this commercial seal slaughter.
Animal Friends Croatia urges all those who are interested to write to the Embassy of Canada to Croatia in Zagreb in order to help end this crime against animals on this address: Kanadsko veleposlanstvo u Zagrebu, Prilaz Gjure Dezelica 4, 10000 Zagreb; e-mail: zagrb@international.gc.ca.
![Zagreb demo against the seal slaughter 1 [ 266.53 Kb ]](/data/image_3_11422.jpg "Zagreb demo against the seal slaughter 1 [ 266.53 Kb ]")
![Zagreb Demo against the seal slaughter 2 [ 107.51 Kb ]](/data/image_3_11423.jpg "Zagreb Demo against the seal slaughter 2 [ 107.51 Kb ]")
![Killing of a seal with hakapik [ 125.72 Kb ]](/data/image_3_11424.jpg "Killing of a seal with hakapik [ 125.72 Kb ]")
![Harp seal [ 98.58 Kb ]](/data/image_3_11425.jpg "Harp seal [ 98.58 Kb ]")
