Written by Michelle Kretzer
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.
Canadian-born Pamela Anderson got a warm reception when she met with a representative from Germany's Trade Ministry to deliver PETA's seal appeal. She asked him to encourage the European Commission and the World Trade Organization to dismiss Canada's challenge of Europe's ban on seal products.
Pam explained that most Canadians stand firmly with Germany and support the ban on seal products and the inevitable end of the seal slaughter.
"As the vast majority of Germans want the seal slaughter to end," her hand-delivered letter read, "including the more than 40,000 people in Germany who have urged Canada's prime minister to put a stop to it, I'm writing to ask that you please do all in your power to ensure that the E.U. ban on seal products remains in place."
Knowing Germany's progressive stance on the seal slaughter and the representative's positive visit with Pam, we're confident that the Trade Ministry will do exactly that.
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.
Written by Alisa Mullins
It's not over yet, but Iggy Pop, Perez Hilton, Kelly Osbourne, Pamela Anderson, Sarah McLachlan, Diane Warren, and all the people who have spoken out, worn the PETA shirts, and appeared in our ads in the last year have brought us closer to the end of the Canadian seal slaughter. Just weeks before the annual slaughter is set to resume, Ryan Cleary, a member of the Canadian Parliament who represents one of the regions in which the seal slaughter takes place, has acknowledged that the tremendous outcry against beating and shooting baby seals has him questioning the future of the bloody massacre. Says Mr. Cleary: "Part of our history is also whaling, for example, and the day came when the whaling industry stopped. Now, is that day coming with the seal hunt? It just may be."
Cleary's statement comes just weeks after Russia announced that it was taking steps to ban the import of Canadian harp-seal fur, a move that came after Pamela Anderson led an international appeal on PETA's behalf.
Polls have consistently shown that most Canadians oppose the seal slaughter, and as Cleary noted, the industry is an increasing liability for Canada that the country is having more and more difficulty defending.
Please click here to tell Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that yes, the time has come to send the seal slaughter the way of whale slaughter and ban it before the next massacre commences this spring.
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.
Written by PETA
Canada's barbaric seal slaughter continues its downward spiral—and it appears to be taking Canada's integrity with it.
Last week, the European Union (E.U.) rejected an attempt by the native Canadian Inuit to challenge the E.U.'s ban on seal products. Interestingly, the Inuit live far away from the area where the mass commercial slaughter takes place and are responsible for only about 3 percent of Canada's annual seal kill. In addition, the E.U. already exempts Inuit seal products from the ban.
So why would the Inuit fight a ban that doesn't even apply to them? We're not saying that Canada is desperately exploiting native peoples to try to keep the dying seal slaughter going, but if a Marion Barry–esque tape surfaces of a shady hotel room dealing, we won't be surprised.
In the meantime, you can tweet Stephen Harper (@pmharper) and tell him to stop allowing hunters to bash in baby seals' skulls and skin them alive.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
As Norway and Canada prepare for a World Trade Organization hearing on their appeal of the European Union's ban on seal imports, rocker Joan Jett personally delivered an urgent letter on PETA's behalf to the Norwegian minister of foreign affairs calling on Norway to make the hearings and submissions public. Just one Norwegian company purchases 80 percent of the pelts from Canada's seal massacre, and this company has received funding from the Norwegian government for years.
Norwegians and kind people everywhere have the opportunity to weigh in on this issue by submitting comments to the WTO panel deciding the case, and I hope that they will join me in demanding that the government not allow Norway to be a partner in the largest commercial slaughter of marine mammals on the planet ... For a country so compassionate that it would ban fur from fashion shows, supporting Canada's seal massacre just seems ridiculous.
Jett joins Canadians Pamela Anderson and Sarah McLachlan in requesting that the hearing and submissions be made public. If you have a heart for seals, jet on over to CanadasShame.com to help stop the slaughter.
If heavy metal music doesn't conjure up visions of playful puppies and fluffy bunnies, maybe it should. These metalheads are proving that nothing rocks like being kind to animals:
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