Regardless why it’s finally happened, it has been announced that the annual spring slaughter of baby seals in the northern White Sea region has been scrapped after Vladimir Putin condemned the clubbing of baby seals for their fur as a “bloody trade”.
As the EU continues to consider a ban on seal products, this year’s Canadian seal “hunt” has already started with 200 grey seal pups being beaten to death with wooden bats on Hay Island (2,000 would have died except that this year – at last – there were no buyers.) The main “hunt” begins in just 2 days. Taking place over a period of just 2-3 months and with deaths numbering hundreds of thousands, it is the largest single slaughter of mammals in the world. Its cruelty has been well-documented for over 100 years and should be legendary yet…it continues. Matthew Scully has written eloquently yet plainly about it (here and here and here). And here is an excerpt of notes from one eye-witness to last year’s activities in Newfoundland:
“One seal tried desperately to crawl away, leaving a sickening trail of blood behind her on the ice. For agonizing moments, we watched from our helicopter as she slowly dragged herself toward the water. Finally, the sealers reached the still-struggling pup. Without missing a beat, they impaled her on a steel hook, dragged her across the ice, and pulled her up onto their boat. A sealer threw her body onto a pile of about 50 dead and dying seals, then casually reached for a club and smashed her skull.
Another seal pup that had been shot but not killed was hooked and dragged across the ice while still conscious. The pup was tossed callously onto a pile of dead seals in a boat. Moments later, we saw the seal pup moving amidst the carcasses.
One wounded seal struggled as she was stabbed with a boat hook. Seeing that she was still alive, the sealer stopped and clubbed her ineffectively with a wooden pole – an illegal weapon.
Yet another seal was shot and injured but, as blood poured from him, managed to make it to the edge of the ice, where he disappeared into the water. Though a part of me cheered inside when he evaded the hunters, I know all too well that he will almost surely bleed to death slowly – just one of the countless thousands of wounded seals who endure this fate each year.”
Independent veterinarians have condemned this hunt as cruel, even though the “hunters” knew at the time they were being watched. And even worse than the overall cruelty involved in beating helpless babies to death is a fact no one likes to have bantied about: as many as 42% of those battered babies are skinned alive.
Already heavily-subsidized by the Canadian government (indirectly through such things as grants and numerous unrepaid loans to processing plants and heavy marketing aimed at the European fashion industry), the truth is that it would cost little to end it right now.
But apparently even the Russians now have at least more sense, if not heart, than the Canadian Prime Minister and the Canadian Department of Fisheries.