Written by Michelle Kretzer
As Canadian Sen. Mac Harb prepared to address the Senate about his bill to phase-out the seal slaughter last week, he got some unexpected support from another well-known Ontario native.
Photo: Don Flood|Hair: Giannandrea for The Wall Group|Makeup: Gloria Noto for Jed Root
The Secret Life of the American Teenager star Megan Park is proud to hail from Canada, and she wrote to each senator in her native Ontario on PETA's behalf expressing her support for Bill S-210 and urging the senators to pass it:
Since I play a teenager on TV, I know that young people everywhere are becoming increasingly aware of issues that affect animals, and like me, they don't want to see baby seals bludgeoned and skinned alive to make fur coats.
The Senate voted unanimously to continue debate on the bill. From American teenagers to Russian prime ministers to Canadian actors to British rockers, the world is sending Canada a message that is loud and clear: It's time to end the seal slaughter. If you haven't already done so, please add your voice to the chorus today.
Last week after Canadian Sen. Mac Harb announced that he would introduce a bill to end the seal slaughter, PETA immediately posted an action alert on our website asking our members to urge Canadian senators to support the bill. You responded in droves: Within two days, some 50,000 of you asked them to pass the bill and end the slaughter. Hollywood jumped in, too, and soon a link to our action alert had reached millions of people via Twitter.
Sam Simon, Stephanie Pratt, Jessica-Jane Clement, Joanna Krupa, Angela Simmons, Laura Vandervoort, Sheneka Adams, Jayde Nicole, Elisabetta Canalis, and Jessica Veronica, also tweeted their support, and before the bill had even been introduced, the worldwide support for it was evident.
With public support for the bill obviously so overwhelming, Sen. Larry Campbell seconded it after it was introduced, and the Senate voted almost unanimously to hear arguments on it. The bill will now be debated, so we still need everyone to continue to e-mail Canada's senators and urge them to support this historic piece of legislation.
Following a meeting with PETA just weeks ago, Canadian Sen. Mac Harb introduced historic legislation today to end Canada's seal slaughter, stating that the "end of the commercial sealing industry is now inevitable." Sen. Larry Campbell seconded the motion, and it received an overwhelmingly positive response from other senators who want to see it debated.
© Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
Sen. Harb's bill comes on the heels of Russia's decision to ban seal-fur imports—a move that came after Pamela Anderson led an international appeal on PETA's behalf. Russia (which had been importing 95 percent of Canadian seal pelts), the U.S., E.U. countries, and many other nations have banned seal-product imports following years of intensive international campaigns by PETA and our affiliates.
Celebrities such as Pamela Anderson, Pink, Olivia Munn, Russell Simmons, Tommy Lee, Alicia Silverstone, Dave Navarro, Joanna Krupa, and many others have set the Twitterverse on fire by pushing PETA’s action alert calling on support for the historic bill.
We have an opportunity to end the barbaric annual bludgeoning and shooting of baby harp seals for good, and we cannot let it pass us by.
If you are Canadian, contact your senator.
It's time for the Canadian government to face it: The seal slaughter is dead in the water. As Grammy Award–winning Canadian icon Sarah McLachlan wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the logical next step is for Canada to buy out the sealers rather than continuing to waste millions of dollars fighting seal-product bans.
It seems that the only reason the Canadian government is still supporting the slaughter is that both parties desperately want control of the parliamentary swing seats in Newfoundland and Labrador, where the slaughter takes place. Sarah encouraged the prime minister to lead the way in ending the massacre:
The sealers—like tobacco farmers and asbestos miners—need leaders to devise a practical exit strategy for them, not waste millions more in hopeless World Trade Organization challenges or paying to stockpile pelts when buyers already have seal pelts going back several years. Won't you lead the way?
Sarah, who penned the letter on behalf of PETA, has publicly criticized the seal slaughter for years, as have world leaders such as President Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, globally known celebrities such as Sir Paul McCartney and Martin Sheen, and even Canadian politicians such as Sen. Mac Harb.
During PETA's intense campaign against the seal slaughter, the U.S., the E.U., and now Russia, which had been importing 95 percent of Canada's seal fur, have all banned seal products. The time has come for Canada to accept the inevitable and end the slaughter.
Tweet Prime Minister Stephen Harper and ask him to give sealers an exit strategy that they—and seals—can live with.
Today, Canada is allowing sealers in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to stalk baby seals across the ice, smash their heads in with clubs, ram hooks into their eyes or mouths, and drag them back to the boats, despite the fact that there's no market for the seal fur. They will also rip the skin off the seals' bodies while some of the animals are still alive. But you can help stop it—and it can be as simple as taking to Twitter.
(c) Sea Shepard Conservation Society
The market for Canada's seal pelts continues its downward spiral as more and more nations, including the U.S., countries in the E.U., and most recently Russia—which had imported 95 percent of Canadian seal pelts—ban seal products. Even some of Canada's own members of Parliament are publicly questioning whether the annual massacre should continue. Tell them "No" emphatically by choosing one (or more) of the messages below to tweet to all your friends and followers, asking them to help spread the word as well:
And while you're at it, send a polite tweet to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (@pmharper) urging him to call off the slaughter immediately!
Written by Jeff Mackey
Here's some good (but still sad!) news from one front in the fight to stop the annual Canadian seal massacre: Only eight grey seals were killed in Nova Scotia this year. That's down from nearly 1,500 in 2008, which (if my calculator skills don't fail me) means that this year's killings were just over half of 1 percent of the number of animals who died there just four years ago.
Of course, grey seals aren't the only ones bludgeoned in the yearly massacre—the larger commercial harp-seal slaughter is expected to start soon. And even though the market is dead now that Russia—which had imported 95 percent of Canadian seal pelts—has joined the U.S. and the E.U. in banning seal fur, Canada's Fisheries Department has set the annual harp seal quota at 400,000 (the same as last year), amid reports that the government is considering buying and stockpiling pelts in the hope of breaking into new markets.
So this is no time to rest. PETA's international year-round vigorous campaigning will continue—we're keeping busy in a major market that Canada's still trying to lure: China. Although you may not be able to read Chinese, you can see from the photo of this popular Chinese TV star, Gao Yuanyuan, in PETA's seal shirt that we are going all out globally to stop this bloody trade. Please take action now to ensure that the slaughter ends.
In a crushing blow to Canada's annual seal slaughter, Russia, formerly Canada's top commercial market for seal fur, has banned the import of all harp-seal products.
After Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ended his country's seal slaughter in 2009, calling it a "bloody industry that should have been banned long ago," Pamela Anderson led an international appeal on PETA's behalf asking him to ban imports of seal pelts from her native country too. Now Russia, as well as Belarus and Kazakhstan, is joining the U.S., the European Union, and Mexico in refusing to support the shooting and bludgeoning of baby harp seals.
Will this be the death knell for the seal slaughter? The Canadian government is feverishly trying to overturn the ban, so please tell Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to quit postponing the inevitable and end the killing now before the massacre resumes in the spring.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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