Baby Seals

Each year, hundreds of thousands of infant harp seals are killed for their fur in the largest marine mammal slaughter on Earth. Over the last 3 years, 97% of the seals killed in the commercial hunt have been younger than 3 months. In 42% of the cases, the seals did not show enough post-mortem evidence to even guarantee unconsciousness at the time of skinning.

Do you want to do something? Go here

Myths about Canada’s Seal Hunt

Seal hunting is the commercial hunting of seals for their pelts, blubber, and meat. Currently, the seal hunt takes place in Canada, Norway, Greenland, Namibia, & Russia. The commercial season in Canada starts November 15 and lasts through May 15. However, most of the hunting takes place in late March and the first two weeks of April.

Question: Is it illegal to kill baby seals in Canada?
Answer: It is outlawed to kill a seal until it has had its first molt-- which usually means 10 days old or less. As such, 97 percent of the seals killed in the commercial seal hunt over the past three years have been younger than 3 months, and most were younger than 1 month old. Many of these pups had not yet eaten their first solid meal or taken their first swim. These are indeed baby seals.

Question: Is the seal hunt humane?
Answer: An independent veterinary panel performed post-mortems on seal carcasses abandoned on the ice floes in 2001. The report concluded that in 42 percent of cases, the seals did not show enough evidence of cranial injury to even guarantee unconsciousness at the time of skinning. For more information, see http://www.protectseals.org/.

Question: Will new bleeding regulations make the hunt more humane?
Answer: This year, the law has been changed to include a caveat that the arteries under each flipper must be severed prior to skinning. According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare Senior Research, Sheryl Fink, the new regulations call only for "bleeding to be conducted at some point." "Now that I have seen the actual text of the new condition of licence, I'm left speechless by its inadequacy," Fink said. "The impaling of live and conscious seals on steel hooks and hoisting them onto boats is still permitted. I don't know anyone who would call that an improvement in humaneness."

Question: Is the seal hunt sustainable?
Answer: Over the past 10 years, between one-third and one-half of all seal pups have been slaughtered by commercial sealers. Because seals only reach breeding age at 6 years, the impacts of high hunting levels are only starting to be felt.

Question: Is the seal population "exploding," making a cull necessary?
Answer: In defending the commercial seal hunt, supporters often state that the harp seal population has 'tripled' over the past three decades. But they conveniently neglect to mention that over-hunting in the 1950s and 1960s had reduced the population by nearly two-thirds. A dramatic decline in hunting levels in the 1980s allowed the population to rebuild, but today's kill levels now meet and even exceed those of the 1950s and 1960s. Harp seals already have many natural predators, including sharks, whales and polar bears, and now the seals have a new threat to contend with -- climate change. As the ice cover the harp seals need to give birth and nurse their pups on rapidly begins to disappear, the population will face devastating rates of natural mortalities. Those advocating a cull of harp seals are ignoring sound science and common sense.

Question: Does the seal hunt provides important income to sealers and their families?
Answer: Sealers are commercial fishermen who earn a small fraction of their incomes from killing seals -- the rest comes from other sources such as crab, shrimp and lobster. Newfoundland's fishery has never been wealthier, earning nearly $200 million more annually than it did prior to the 1992 cod collapse. This economic growth is due to the expansion of the shellfish industry, which today accounts for 80 percent of the value of Newfoundland's fishery. Sealing, in contrast, brings in only 2 percent. Revenues from the hunt account for less than one-half of 1 percent of the province's economy.

Question: Do Canadians support a "humane" and "sustainable" seal hunt?
Answer: National public opinion polling consistently shows that the overwhelming majority of Canadians oppose the commercial seal hunt. A poll conducted by Environics Research in 2005 showed 69 percent of Canadians opposed to the seal hunt outright, and even higher percentages opposed to inherent aspects of the hunt, such as the killing of seal pups.

Question: How can I share Save Seals with my friends?
Answer: The more people play, the more animals we can feed. This is a forward you can feel good about! Find out the many ways you can share Save Seals.

Help us spread the word by:
Sharing on Facebook
Voting for us on Digg
Giving us a thumbs up on StumbleUpon
Voting on Reddit
Adding us on Del.icio.us
Resources:http://www.hsicanada.ca/seals/seal_myths_and_facts.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_hunting
All proceeds will be donated to the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Experience Project Believes in Community-Driven ContributionExperience Project (EP) embraces the idea of an identity being multifaceted and dynamic. We believes each individual possesses their own uniqueness through their interests, beliefs, relationships, passions, and life experiences. EP provides the chance to explore and express that uniqueness. Often that comes in the form of conversation around causes and issues that matter to our members. Experience Project feels it is important to address and contribute to those social topics the community cares about and supports.

This Information comes from the Experience Project Web Page