February 8, 2010
by Rebecca Aldworth
Too soon, the misery of Canada’s commercial seal slaughter is starting again. Right now, I am preparing to leave for Nova Scotia, along with the HSI ProtectSeals team, to document the killing of up to 2,220 baby grey seals on Hay Island, off Cape Breton.
Hay Island is part of the Scaterie Island Wilderness Area—a protected provincial nature reserve. Yet the Nova Scotia government, in collusion with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, is allowing commercial fishermen to go into this supposedly protected space, to beat baby seals to death for their fur. The slaughter opened today, and sealers are indicating they may begin killing the pups as early as Wednesday.
Over the past two years, I have been on Hay Island to observe the seal nursery—and to bear witness to the slaughter of these defenseless creatures. I know that as I write this, the pups born on Hay Island are playing and sleeping, and some of the youngest are likely still nursing from their mothers. The only sounds on the island now are the soft trills of the baby seals and the waves lapping onto the beach. The pups lie across the island, and from the beaches, you can see the ocean stretching into infinity. To think that in a few days time, sealers will descend on this peaceful place and turn it into an open air slaughterhouse, is unbearable.
There are times when I can only stand back in amazement at the shortsightedness of the commercial sealing industry and my government. With the Olympics opening on February 12th, the eyes of the world are on Canada. Terrified baby seals crying as they are bludgeoned to death with wooden bats… newborn seals covered in blood… dying seals cut open with box cutters inches away from each other—these are not the images I believe Canadians want the world to have of our country.
But according to my government and the sealers, the slaughter will go on.
This will be my twelfth year observing and filming commercial seal slaughters in Canada. The sheer brutality of the killing I’ve seen on Hay Island has been among the worst things I have ever witnessed. We are in the fight of our lives for the lives of these seals. And we will not stop—not for a second—until we have won.
Rebecca Aldworth is executive director of HSI Canada.
http://www.hsicanada.ca/wildlife/seals/seal_hunt_2010/grey_seals_2810.html
TAKE ACTION
Please take action now to stop this senseless slaughter. Fill out the form to automatically send an email to key decision makers and express your opposition to the slaughter of baby seals on Hay Island:
https://secure.humanesociety.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=4383
Stop the Cruel Grey Seal Slaughter
Tragically, the government of Nova Scotia allows the commercial slaughter of grey seals in the protected Scaterie Island Wilderness Area.
The grey seal kill on Hay Island, part of this protected area, is one of the cruelest seal slaughters HSI has ever documented. Sealers herd seals into groups, then club moulted pups as young as a few weeks of age with wooden bats and cut them open with box cutters just inches away from newborn pups and their mothers.
The Winter Olympic Games will open on February 12th – at the same time as the Canadian and Nova Scotia government are allowing sealers to club baby seals to death in a protected nature reserve. The eyes of the world will be on Canada in the next few weeks, and we need your help now to expose the plight of the baby seals.
