On the ice floes off Eastern Canada a horror story is about to unfold. Over the coming days tens of thousands of baby seals will be clubbed and hacked to death. Hundreds of thousands more will be shot and left to die. The lucky ones will die swiftly. Many will suffer long lingering deaths. Four years ago I was the first British journalist in a generation to witness the annual Canadian baby seal slaughter.  I’ve been covering it for the Daily Mail ever since. It was the most traumatic and bewildering story I have ever covered – and one I am determined to continue exposing until the slaughter has ended.

I first caught sight of the slaughter from a helicopter circling 500 feet above the Gulf of St Lawrence. The ice was blood red. For as far as the eye could see, men were dragging bleeding baby seals across the ice. Huge piles of drippping carcasses littered the arctic wilderness.

When we landed the Canadians put on a show for us. One calmly walked over to a baby seal and belted her with his iron tipped club. Her jaw shattered and the sound of splintering bone filled the air. The sealer then flipped the baby over onto her back and began slicing open her throat. The seal began screaming and wriggling furiously. She was still alive and fully conscious. The sealer hit her again and began cutting open her stomach. The poor baby began screaming again, so the Canadian sealer hit her a third time. This time, I hoped, she was dead.

This was not unusual. I directly saw about one hundred seals slaughtered before my eyes. About half of them were skinned alive. I watched as these animals had their skins peeled off whilst they were struggling frantically to escape. Most were only two weeks old.

The Canadians justify this deliberate carnage by claiming that the seals eat valuable fish, such as cod. They claim that seal numbers need to be reduced so that hard-pressed fisheries can recover. This is an environmental fallacy of the first order. In reality, Man has forced cod to the edge of extinction and the seals may, paradoxically, help them return.

Thirty years ago Eastern Canada possessed some of the richest fishing grounds in the world. Throughout the 1980s, 800,000 tonnes of cod per year were caught off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland alone. But decades of mis-management, greed and stupidity wiped out the cod. The Grand Banks were finally closed to fishing in 1992 and have never re-opened.

After the collapse of their fishing industry, the Canadian Government poured in millions of dollars in subsidies to placate the fishermen – and to buy votes. They also began secretly encouraging the slaughter of baby seals. They made an ideal scapegoat. Seals eat fish, they argued, so if you kill seals, the cod will return.

There was just one problem with this approach. What do you do with all of the baby seal carcasses? Europe and America had long ago banned the import of seal products on moral grounds, and the rest of the world did not want seal fur. So, the Canadian Government did what all Governments do; they set up a committee.
 
It was soon realised that there was a loop-hole in the law banning the import of seals into the EU. The ban only applied to ‘young seals’, so the Canadians re-defined ‘young’ as being less than 12 days old. This allowed the skins of two week old baby seals to be sold in Europe.

The Canadian Government then spent millions of dollars subsidising the slaughter and in building seal processing plants. They also spent a small fortune  devising new uses for seal products. These government bureaucrats came up with such delights as seal pizza topping, seal oil margarine and aphrodisiacs made from freeze-dried penises.

Over the past decade the Canadian authorities have year on year increased the size of the “seal harvest”. Last year they deemed that one million could be battered to death over a three year period. Apart from the obvious moral argument against battering to death a million seals, the cull is likely to do further damage to the cod fisheries and may even push the species to the edge of extinction.

Seals do eat cod but they also eat their predators  too. Seals appear to love the taste of Arctic cod and will seek them out to feast upon. Arctic cod prey on the Atlantic cod, the commercial variety of the fish. They will also eat other cod predators. I have spoken to several marine biologists and they were unanimous in telling me that if you kill the seals you will probably reduce numbers of cod available to be caught by fishermen. So not only is the seal cull grossly inhumane, it is counter-productive too.

The cull may also be threatening the future of the species. No one factor drives a species to extinction, it is always the result of many interleaved causes Seals face many grave challenges. Climate change is altering the ice off the Canadian coast.

This may sound trivial but the timing of the ice-melt is crucial to the animals. If it melts earlly, the newborn seals will drown. A few years ago, this did indeed happen and a million newborns drowned. This year it looks likelty to happen again. If these ‘natural’ disasters increase in frequency then they could end up hitting the seal population hard. The build-up of toxic pollution is also affecting the ability of the animals to breed and is also weakening their immune systems. None of these factors will wipe-out the seals but in combination they may well do so.

It is too easy to feel helpless when you come face to face with the kind of barbarity I witnessed in Canada. It is easy to say to oneself ‘how can I change government policy?’ In reality, the Canadian Government can very easily be forced to abandon its support of the cull. First and foremost, a boycott of Canadian holidays could be hugely effective because the economic value of the cull is so tiny. A new campaign, called ‘boycott-canada.org’ aims to encourage just such a boycott.

British tourism is worth around £1 billion pounds per year to the Canadian ecomomy. If just one in one hundred British people take their holidays elsewhere then Canada would be a net loser. Simply writing to the Canadian embassy and telling them about your plans could have a huge impact. The address is shown below. Avoiding other Canadian products, such as maple syrup will be effective too.

Another approach would be to lobby our own Government to completely ban the import of seal products. The Netherlands, Italy and Germany are considering bringing forth similar legislation. The US Senate is expected to pass a resolution condemning the trade very soon. Pressure is also mounting on the EU to ban the trade completely across the whole of Europe. If this happens, then the slaughter will almost certainly end.

The Canadian’s are probably the most civilised people on earth so talking will help. But if we start taking our holidays elsewhere then they will certainly listen.

www.boycott-canada.org

The address of the Canadian High Commission is: 1 Grosvenor Square, London W1K 4AB

Comments (4) >>

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written by Marc, April 29, 2008

Why do these "hit pieces" always depict pictures of white coat baby seals?
White coat seal harvesting has been banned in Canada for years now. This type of misleading reporting (conjoining pics of dead white coats and mentioning baby seals in the same breath) only discredits the reporter's opinion.

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written by Andrea Hernandez, April 23, 2008

I personaly am in an animal rights group!!!! And I cannot believe the hings that you (samantha) have stated!!! The slaughter of baby seals have nothing to do with bringing back fish. So what if there are no more cod fish!! Who cares?! Canadians can find something else to sell. I find this truly disgusting. And in a way I find you disgusting as well! How is t possible for you to think that this should even be allowed?! They are just babies. Thats like saying "Oh well the world is over populated by humans so we will just have to kill all of the new borns from now on." You shouldn't even have to think about it. It should be illegal! A baby is a baby no matter what;and should be allowed the gift of life. If taking their lives is soething that really has to be done it can be done in a more respectable way. They can be euthanized. They don't have to turtured and slaughtered. especially while still concious. It makes me sick to know tha there are people in this world who murder innocent baby animals an it disgusts me to know that there are ignorant,disgusting,immoral,idiot people like you who are okay with circumstances like these. You will suffer greatly in the future. Myself and my group will make sure that all of these murderers and their supporters are rid of. The world doesn't need people like you!!! You honestly have no idea what you are saying and are truly ignorant! You make me sick!!!

p.s
Thank you Heather!!! You should look into joining an animal rights group!!!

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written by Samantha Gerbeau, March 03, 2008

This is what I sent in and it has been removed:

ANYONE WHO IS NOT FULLY AWARE OF THE TOTAL FACTS OF FOOD, READ CLOSELY AND
SEE WHO ARE THE REAL DESTROYERS OF THE EARTH. BOYCOTT ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUPS!

You, (animal rights groups and the uninformed) need to get the facts
straight and realize that all you are doing is propelling the earth into
further destruction. Seals eat a lot of fish (more than 25 pounds a day!)
Take into account that there are 6 million of them eating fish each day, 365
days a year. Now there are no more fish. Are you tormented that seal pups
are drowning because of thin ice, (global warming) or starvation (lack of
fish)? Are you tormented that are now dealing with Seal worm, which is
earth's way of trying to balance out their horrendous popluation? Are you
tormented that we have triple the population of seals since the 1970's when
your hero, Brian Davies began this money making idea for himself on the
backs of seals? Are you tormented by the fact that more seals exists today
per the ratio of fish that still exist from what was ever recorded in the 2
to 3 hundred years of sealing history? Are you tormented by the fact that
our earth is also dealing with triple the population of obesity? The weight
of the world is a ripple effect created by animal rights activists. Our
children are not getting the proper nutrients, because you keep telling the
the uninformed public (because the informed know the difference) that eating
seal products like seal oil is bad, when in fact it's very good: it helps
the growing aging population prevent and control the high cost of health
care by taking natural seal oil supplements and doctors are trying to
encourage the public to eat seal oil to help heal pain, strengthen bones and
teeth, and immune systems, and it keeps our younger ones strong and healthy.
Are you tormented by the fact that you are slowly killing humans and seals
with your selfish feelings of unsightly blood? Blood is the essence of life
and hunters give thanks to the essence of life. Are you tormented by the
fact that you are foolishly encouraging others to further destroy what was
once the largest fish stocks in the world? Seals eat more fish than any
other mammal. Living around the North Atlantic Ocean all year long, they
feast on your supper. Oh! But if you are vegan, you probably don't eat fish.
So, how do you deal with eating live fruits and vegetables? Are you
tormented by the silent screams that can only be detected by radio waves
that vegetables KNOW when they are about to be stabbed and cut open with a
knife? How about looking into how vegetables feel and the cruelty acts of
chopping them into a little bits and boiling them up in hot water? There is
plenty of research to show the state of shock they go into before you take a
bite out of that apple? So, why don't you do what most sensible people do -
Thank the earth for the gift of food, the essence of life and give gratitude
to the ones who get it and give it to you.

Mark my words:
Once the real knowledge gets around the world to the voting public - your
target audience of elected politicians - your money making circus of
negative hatred will be finished. The earth will take care of herself and
those who help take care of her. You, on the other hand, well, you still
have a chance to put your energies into helping rather than further
destroying what is meant to be. As bloody as it may be, Newfoundland Seal
Hunters, help heal the earth.

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written by Heather, July 13, 2007

This is disgusting. How can people do that to them? They are so young and defencless. These people should be deeply ashamed of themselves- all this slaughter for something as insignificant as fur. This story is heart wrenching and I will tell people to read it and realise how cruel this is.

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