SWAKOPMUND -- A group of local and international journalists this week witnessed the killing of seal pups at Cape Cross on Namibia's northern coast, the Namibian Press Agency reported.
Invited by the director of resource management in the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Burger Oelofsen, the group arrived at the seal colony in the morning to watch the culling of 296 pups by the concession holders, Seal Products.
Eighteen Seal Products' employees herded the seals in groups of 20 to 40 along a narrow pathway, where the pups were clubbed and the adults allowed to return to the ocean.
After being clubbed, the pups were stabbed with long knives through the heart to ensure that they were completely dead, Nampa said. -- Sapa
......but, in 2006, this excuse is no longer justified. As Namibian's 2006 Baby Seal Slaughter draws to an end on November 15. The question remains, we will just begin again next year?
To visiting journalists, 'the controlled show' might have seemed somehow acceptable that 296 baby pups were separated from the mothers and 'orderly clubbed' to death in one morning, along a narrow gauntlet of club welding sealers. But then, this was just one show-day, the reality is something entirely different.
Three sealing concession holders, send in over 40 club welding sealers every morning into two mainland seal colonies, which consists of 75% of the population. Each day they will smash their way through 600 to 1000 baby seals, causing the entire seal colony to flee to the safety of the sea, and return the next day, and the next, until their 85 000 baby seal pup quota is reached or as has been happening since 1990, there is not a single baby seal pup left alive to club to death. This can take anything between 85 - 150 days. Before the entire (what is left) of the seal colony flees in terror.
Whilst sealers earn just R15 (USD $2) per slaughtered pup. Seal Alert-SA is forced to pay thousands in the hope of saving some of these innocent victims of today's sick society.
Whilst the world screams global warming - sealers and baby seals, scream KILL, KILL.
For the Seals Francois Hugo Seal Alert-SA
Cathy Kangas, president and founder of PRAI Beauty, offered the Canadian government $16 million to end the hunt earlier this year. Kangas got no response from Ottawa, so now she's offering to buy out seal licences.
Kangas says hundreds of seal hunters have called and e-mailed her, interested in her offer, and says she met in Halifax last week with two Island seal hunters who are interested in helping her shut down the industry.
"I'm still trying to work with some of the sealers on Prince Edward Island," said Kangas. "Some of the sealers themselves came and said, 'We'd love to have seal tourism.' Instead of the hunt that just comes and goes for a few weeks, why not be able to have, you know, the tourism from it. A little bit like whale watching. Perhaps we could have a role like a park ranger."
Kangas says she plans to visit Prince Edward Island later this month or early next month to speak with more seal hunters, but Ed Frenette, executive director of the P.E.I. Fishermen's Association suggests that would be a waste of time.
"After smiling, I guess the reaction was that it won't fly," said Frenette. "We brought it to our board of directors of the fishermen's association, who turned the concept down flatly. People have to understand that there's been a real explosion in the numbers of seals in the southern Gulf. They're eating fish stocks at an enormous rate, and they're damaging gear all over the place."
There are 22 active seal licences on Prince Edward Island
MEPs VOTE TO HALT SEAL SLAUGHTER
GREEN PLAN TO BAN EU SEAL FUR IMPORTS WINS MAJORITY SUPPORT
Lucas, who is also a Vice-President of the RSPCA, which awarded her its 'Michael Kay Award' earlier this year to mark an 'outstanding contribution to European animal welfare', co-sponsored a Written Declaration, along with four other parliamentary colleagues, calling for a ban on the import or sale of any products from hooded or harp seals.
Written Declarations are the European Parliament's equivalent of an Early Day Motion in the UK House of Commons.
ahead of its parliamentary deadline.
Dr Lucas, also the Green Party's Principal Speaker, said: "This is fantastic news, which brings us a significant step closer to ending the cruel and entirely unnecessary slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seals in Canada and Russia every year.
"I am delighted that a majority of MEPs from all political groups and EU member nations have agreed that this barbaric practice must be ended - and the onus is now on the European Commission to act immediately, as MEPs have
demanded, before next year's hunt."
The declaration, which will be formally adopted later today (Wednesday,September 6th) calls for the European Commission to immediately ban the trade in seal body parts and products - a ban already adopted in Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Croatia and the US, and under consideration by the Council of Europe.
Dr Lucas initially proposed the ban after it emerged that more than a million wild harp and hooded seals have been slaughtered in Canada in just the last three years - and over a hundred thousand seal pups have suffered a similar fate in Russia.
She said: "More than 20 years after the EU banned the import of fur products from the very youngest seal pups, hundreds of thousands of seals pups annually - most just a few weeks old - are clubbed on the ice floes or shot from moving boats as they attempt to flee. Many are skinned alive.
"And every year there is public outrage when pictures of the hunt are broadcast around the world - but the most 'telegenic' pictures are taken near the end of the annual hunt, and the outrage comes too late for another generation of seals."
Dr Lucas added: "Banning the import of all seal fur is the only guaranteed way of saving thousands of animals' lives and showing the EU takes animal welfare and protection issues seriously."
Dr. Jerry Vlasak of California chooses jail over paying fine for seal hunt violation.
One of 11 seal hunt protesters convicted earlier this year of coming illegally close to the 2005 seal hunt has surrendered himself to authorities to begin serving a 22-day jail term.
Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a California trauma surgeon, has opted to serve time at the Provincial Correctional Centre rather than pay a $1,000 fine imposed by provincial court Judge Nancy Orr.
Vlasak, a highly controversial figure in the animal rights movement, said he would not pay the fine as long as the federal government continues to support and promote the seal hunt.
While awaiting transport to jail he took the opportunity to restate his opposition to the hunt, saying the hunt was both cruel and unnecessary and existed solely to provide pelts to make articles of clothing for the rich.
Vlasak is the first of the protesters to turn himself in and begin serving his sentence. John Mitchell, legal counsel for the high-profile animal rights activist, said he’s aware of plans by several of those arrested with Vlasak to turn themselves in and serve their respective sentences.
Vlasak and his co-accused were members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and at the time charges were laid they were serving as crew aboard the society’s ship Farley Mowat.
They were convicted of illegally coming within half a nautical mile of seal hunters in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on March 30,2005.
Seal Hunt in Western Canada? [SSCS]
On March 28th, Captain Paul Watson was interviewed by CBC television for his response to a call for a West Coast Canadian Seal Slaughter.
The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is making noises about setting a quota of 20,000 seals on the West Coast. There was no indication as to the targeted species – harbour seals or seal lions?
Captain Watson informed CBC that any move towards opening a slaughter of seals on the Pacific coast would be strongly opposed.
Croatia has joined Mexico, the United States, Greenland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Luxembourg, which have banned or are in a process of introducing a ban on import of pelts and other products derived from seals.
March 15, 2006: Zagreb - citizens protest against the slaughter of seals in Canada
News Release from Animal Friends Croatia: Zagreb, Croatia, March 29, 2006:
At the height of protests on six continents and with the opposition of the whole world, Croatian Nature Protection Division - Biodiversity and Landscape Conservation Department with the Ministry of Culture bans the import of seal pelts and other products derived from seals!
According to the Directive of the Council of Europe, which came into force by being published in Official Gazette No. 34/2006 on March 27, 2006, Croatia banned the commercial import of skin and other products derived from skin and seals In this case, the word is about the Cystophora cristata - hooded seals and Phoca groenlandica - harp seals, the very species of seals that are now commercially being hunted on the east coast of Canada!
‘By taking this extremely important step, Croatia contributed a lot to endeavours of the Coalition to Protect Seals which at the moment has 47 member organizations from all over the world, but also to more than 70% of world and Canadian public which is opposing to this pointless and shameless slaughter', says Luka Oman, chairman of Animal Friends Croatia. 'We would like that the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management of Croatia follows the bright example of the Ministry of Culture and implements the ban on breeding animals for fur in Croatia in their Animal Protection Bill Proposal. '
Animal Friends Croatia
Another anti seal hunt activist is on a hunger strike - April 2 [sscs]
Ottawa, Canada- Svetlana Fotinov is now in her 3rd day of a hunger strike before the Canadian Parliament Buildings, protesting the seal hunt in Canada.
Hunger Strike in Jail, Charlottetown,Prince Edward Island,Canada - April 2 [sscs]
Dr. Jerry Vlasak, the trauma surgeon from Los Angeles, is in his 3rd day of a hunger strike inside the jail where he has been sentenced to twenty-two days for approaching within a half of a nautical mile of where a sealer was killing a seal.
Twenty-two days for witnessing the cruel and brutal slaughter of a seal pup. Not only was Dr. Vlasak charged with this, he was attacked by sealers on the ice, struck with a sealing club, and his face bloodied. The Mounties refused to lay charges against his assailants.
Sea Shepherd crew member Lisa Shalom, to be sentenced on April 3rd for filming seal slaughter- April 2 [sscs]
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada.-Canadian Lisa Shalom, who was arrested last March for witnessing a seal being killed, is scheduled to appear in court in Charlottetown, on Monday, April 3rd for sentencing.
Ten of the eleven Sea Shepherd crew have been sentenced to pay $1,000 fines each for approaching sea