For Immediate Release:
September 11, 2008

Contact:
Lindsay Rajt 757-622-7382

St. Johns, Newfoundland -- This morning, PETA dispatched a letter to Myrtle Stagg, chair of the Elliston Heritage Foundation, urging her to erect a memorial to the millions of baby seals who are bludgeoned, shot, and often skinned alive in seal hunts. The plans currently call for a memorial to honour seal hunters who have lost their lives in pursuit of seals. Because the foundation's Web site clearly states, "The Elliston Heritage Foundation is non-political and abstains from the politics of the seal hunt," PETA is hopeful that Stagg will give the proposal serious consideration.

"The people of Elliston and other towns in Newfoundland have it in their power to make sure that not one more person dies while hunting seals--just stop the universally condemned seal hunt," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.

PETA's letter to Elliston Heritage Foundation Chair Myrtle Stagg follows.

September 11, 2008

Myrtle Stagg, Chair
Elliston Heritage Foundation

Dear Ms. Stagg,

I am writing on behalf of PETA's more than 2 million members and supporters, including many thousands of Canadian citizens, regarding your plans to establish a memorial to all the people who have died during the seal hunts. With the recent expansion of your foundation's focus to include the general heritage of the Elliston area, we urge you to consider erecting a memorial to the seals who die in even more horrifying ways during the hunt each year--a tragedy that has yet to end.

Descriptions of the 1914 Newfoundland incident are sad indeed, but if you can see the misery in that incident, surely you can open your heart to see that the seals killed each year in the largest marine mammal slaughter in the world suffer tremendously too. Veterinarians who studied the hunt concluded that 42 percent of the seals were still alive when their skin was torn off their bodies. Sealers bludgeon baby seals with clubs and hakapiks, drag conscious seals across the ice floes with boat hooks, and toss dying animals onto heaps with the dead. Then the sealers leave the animals' carcasses to rot because there is no market for their meat.

The barbaric killing of hundreds of thousands of baby seals each year is horrific and preventable. A memorial in honour of the seals would provide an opportunity for visitors to reflect on the suffering and deaths of animals who were once vibrant, full of life and joy, and loved by their families and friends.

Thank you for your consideration. You can contact me with any questions that you might have .

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President