Supermarkets Join Forces with Humane Society to Protect Seals

The boycott would make sense in the US, but I live in Canada, and to buy imported seafood would less sustainable...the dilemma...
A license retirement program or something similar to it wouldn't be a bad idea...fishermen are people too...

Before blindly entering into protest of the seal hunt please read the facts:

http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/seal-phoque/CanSealHunt_ChassePhoqueCan_e.htm

Sealers follow regulations just the same as fishermen and other hunters. Protesting the way the animals are killed is one thing but protesting the livelihood of hunters by calling for a ban on hunting altogether is outrageous. Would it therefore be ok to ban the farming of fruits and vegetables because you are unhappy with the method of cultivation they use?

I read the facts and it says they bleed the animals to death? Sounds inhumane to me and I love to eat animals.

And the way other food animals die is more humane?

Seals are bled to death, while fish are dragged out of the ocean to die from suffocation. Or those snow crabs that these stores sell so much of -- boiled alive.

Seals are water based predators who eat a lot of fish;: so we keep the seal population in check, much like the farmers and ranchers did (and still do) with land based predators.

But people think seals are cute and not a direct danger to people (unlike say wolves) so most people don't even try to think that the seal population may need to be controlled.

The modern seal hunt kills seals humanely. The only reason they get attention is because they are cute. To me it shows a lack of depth of understanding of the big issues that face us.

"Seals are water based predators who eat a lot of fish;: so we keep the seal population in check, much like the farmers and ranchers did (and still do) with land based predators."

I've heard this argument a thousand times and I have to say this is complete BOGUS. Nature does not need your intervention, thank you very much. The seal population will simply reach an optimal equilibrium w.r.t. to the fish if we stopped interfering (hunting fish and hunting seals).

The only sustainable way to go is vegetarianism / farming fish. Imagine what would happen if the 9 billion world population expected in 2050 would start eat hunted fish.

It is not sustainable to collect "a little bit" from the oceans -- not in the long term when the rest of the world demands the same. We have to put the controls now if we want to avoid another catastrophe.

Deniz

Humans are omnivores -- you can choose to be a vegetarian but please stop trying to convince the world we all have to switch to your "religion"

Oh and most of the fruits, grains and vegetables that you eat .... have human intervention involved. After all we killed the plants that were originally there to get the food crops into the ground.

And in the words of the Arrogant Worms Carrot Juice is Murder

This is an excellent post , thanks a lot , I'm grateful to you.

"I read the facts and it says they bleed the animals to death? Sounds inhumane to me and I love to eat animals."

Newsflash: every animal you eat has to bleed to death at some point before you eat it. Cows, pigs, chickens are all stunned/clubbed, then hung upside down and bled to death from a main artery.

The boycott itself is ridiculous and tiresome for Canadians. The province of Newfoundland, where the hunt takes place has already lost its cod fishing industry because of American restaurants (et al) that ate it all up and now they want to take away another industry that many communities DEPEND on? Outrageous.

The whole concept that marine environments will collapse if a bunch of men don't go out to kill baby seals with baseball bats is completely inane.
I just wish TreeHugger would publish the list of supermarkets supporting the seals so we can vote with our wallets...

Thank you Treehugger for this very informative article! It is so wonderful that someone is doing something to end the largest slaughter of marine mammals on the planet. We need to stop using these seals as a scapegoat for the results of our overfishing practices - this is a barbaric hunt that needs to be stopped. The seals are used mainly for their fur which is completely unnecessary, and often they are skinned alive. I will be boycotting Canadian seafood from now on and reaching out to my local grocer to do the same!

I am one of the majority of Canadians who oppose the commercial seal hunt in Canada. Please do not purchase Canadian seafood at grocery stores or restaurants. You can find out which restaurants and grocery stores have joined the ProtectSeals campaign by visiting:

www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/protect_seals/restaurant_locator

If you want mroe factual information about Canada's commercial seal hunt, visit:

www.protectseals.org or
www.sealhunt.ca

There is no justification for killing baby seals for fur. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), the Federal Ministry that oversees the seal hunt, has not been able to manage one commercially viable marine species. This being so, informed Canadians have no confidence that the DFO will ensure the survival of the harp seal species.

There is no scientific evidence that the seal hunt is sustainable -- in 2007, 100% of the seal pups in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence drown or were aborted because there was no sea ice for their mother's to give birth. Yet the DFO continued the seal hunt in the Northern Gulf and the Front, off the coast of Newfoundland.

Given the melting of the artic ice, the habitat on which the seals depend, there should be no seal hunt. Even the DFO's own scientists have spoken out against the huge quotas set by the DFO, warning that they are unsustainable.

The seal hunt is not about eating animals...it is about killing baby seals for their fur and leaving their bodies to rot on the ice. There is virtually no market for seal meat outside of a few rural outports in Newfoundland and Quebec. This hunt is actually a slaughter since the seals killed -- over 95% of them are under three months of age -- have not yet eaten solid foodand cannot swim or escape the fishermen. It is not a humane, well-regulated or well-monitored hunt, though the DFO continues to mislead the public that the slaughter is humane, well-monitored and well-regulated.

Please join the millions of Canadians that want this horrible slaughter to end. Please join the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have pledged not to purchase Canadian seafood.

Thank you.

Karen Levenson
Canadian citizen

FiveFoot said "Protesting .....the livelihood of hunters by calling for a ban on hunting altogether is outrageous. Would it therefore be ok to ban the farming of fruits and vegetables because you are unhappy with the method of cultivation they use?"

Obviously FiveFoot never heard of Cezar Chavez.

In the 1980s, people all across America stopped eating grapes as part of boycott organized by Cezar Chavez. The goal of the boycott was to get farmers to change the method of cultivation - to stop using toxic pesticides on the grapes.

Guess what? His boycott succeeded.

Consumers have the power to encourage suppliers to change their behavior. In this case, over 5,000 restaurants and grocery stores and hundreds of thousands of individuals are letting Canada's fishing industry know that it needs to stop supporting and participating in the annual slaughter of seal pups,

The decision is in the hands of Canada's fishermen - they can end the barbaric and needless hunt, or they can continue to loss customers.

Nice job, Treehugger!

It's way past time for this hunt to end. I applaud all of the companies that are working with the Humane Society of the United States to bring the hunt to an end.

People who say the hunt is no different from what goes on in a slaughterhouse simply don't know what they are talking about.

Each year thousands of seal pups are skinned alive. SKINNED ALIVE.

And for what? For low quality fur coats.

Unlike a slaughterhouse, all of the meat is left in a mountain of carcasses to rot on the ice.

Canada can do better. It must!

Will they be boycotting European foods too? If not, why not?

The total allowable catch of seals is 270,000 per year. This number is, by comparison, smaller than the average number of animals killed for pelts on European fur farms every WEEK.

Roger Strong, I'm afraid you are missing the point.

The men who club the sealers are the some people who catch the seafood that is being boycotted. These men are being presented witch a choice by the boycott - change your behavior or lose access to important customers.

The EU example you've come up with is totally different. EU food producers DO NOT run fur farms in Europe. Penalizing food producers in EU for the wrongs committed by fur farms would be a misplacement of market force.

Those parts of Canada's fishing industry that don't kill seals are standing in support of the guys who do kill the seals. They allow seafood they catch to be co-mingled with seafood caught by seal-killers.

The boycott is focusing exactly where it needs to focus - on the industry that kills the seals.

Tom,
With so much of the rest of the Canadian east coast's economy dependant on fishing, you're taking them on as a *people*, not just one small group.

Saying that the much, much larger European slaughter is "for fashion only, not food", isn't going to go over very well.

Nevertheless, using the same reasoning, obviously the people calling for the boycott of the *entire* Canadian fisheries are also calling for a boycott of the *entire* European clothing industry. Could you please point me to that boycott?

I'm really glad to see the boycott having an impact. This is a great post. Someof the commentary however makes me cringe for the environmental movement, unless some of these folks are trolls from the slash/burn/poison school of sustainable ecology. Taunts about killing vegetables and etc. are just silly and ignorant, and make light of the issue of gratuitious cruelty and suffering. I've read some things on the hunt, and apparently teams of research veterinarians went up there and determined that many of the seals were being skinned before they were completely unconscious. Anybody here OK with that? I think I don't want to meet you. Really: the link between cruelty and suffering, and the enjoyment of inflicting it, and sociopathic behavior is well established. We don't have to be perfect, or keep and care for animals perfectly, or even treat each other perfectly, in order to have a right to protest just plain pointless cruelty. It boils down to, do we want a society that has the capacity for empathy for suffering or don't we? And yes, that includes the hunters; but the hunters can do very well without killing another seal; seals can't do very well at all without their skin, and they also cannot play their roles in the ecosystem of the region as predators and prey.

The annual Canadian harp seal hunt is truly a senseless slaughter. Hundreds of thousands of baby seals are killed each year, not for meat, but for fur that is used to make fashion items that are sold in Europe and Asia. Seal fur is banned in the U.S., and the European Union is considering a proposal to ban its import into their member countries.

It is well-documented that the “hunt” is inhumane. I use quotes because that term is misleading. What is called a hunt is really a massacre that takes place in an outdoor nursery. The seal pups clubbed on the ice are too young to swim away and have no means of escape. Killing seals is a treacherous business and the ice is too dangerous for the sealers to hang around and check to make sure each pup’s skull has been cracked sufficiently to cause it to die instantly after being bludgeoned on the head. As a result, many pups are left to die in agony. A scientific study conducted by veterinarians examining carcasses on the ice has concluded that 42% of the seals are skinned alive.

In 2007 the ice floes melted, due to global warming, before the seal pups could learn to swim. Many thousands drowned, and yet the hunt continued. Sealers used guns and shot the (slightly older) seals swimming in the water. Many more wounded seals sunk to the bottom and they too died a slow agonizing death. These seals were not included in the official count of those killed.

Seals eat many varieties of fish, including predators of cod. The Canadian fishermen may very well be contributing to the collapse of cod stocks not only from their over-fishing, which is a known cause, but from the seal hunt as well. When will the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans recognize the fragility of their beautiful but vulnerable marine ecosystem?

The sealers make only a fraction of their income selling pelts. Markets are closing. (“Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, France, Mexico and Panama have either banned seal product trade or have announced their intention to do so”—HSUS) The Canadian government, in fact, subsidizes the hunt, which is an off-season activity for its east coast fishermen, to the tune of over 10 million dollars. This includes Coast Guard assistance to sealing vessels, the DFO’s patrols to find seal herds and report their location to the hunters, grants to seal product marketing companies, government lobbing for the sealing industry, and, in 2007, millions of dollars in compensation to hunters affected by the diminished ice cover.

The boycott is an effective tool to force Canada into the 21st century. Many believe ecotourism, which would benefit the fishermen and their families, is the answer. Instead of a landscape stained with blood, the pristine birthing grounds of the Canadian harp seals would be a source of income for neighboring communities and a source of inspiration for all who came to see.

I am surprised in you people who think stopping hunting is a way of going green. Your wrong. If it wasn't for a former US President, Theodor Roosevelt, we wouldn't have conservation of wildlife. Not only that, there probably would be a lot of wildlife extinct today if it wasn't for Teddy. He brought regulations for hunting, Stopped commercial hunting, and helped preserve habitat and is the one who introduced taxes to hunting equipment to pay for all this. To me he is the father of being green and conservation. The ironic thing about him is that he was also a hunter. I say if seals need regulated by hunting, let it be done ethically and regulated.

It's time to put the final nail in the coffin of this disgusting and brutal atrocity once and for all. I am a Canadian citizen and lament that our international reputation has been irreparably sullied by this seal pup massacre -- the largest slaughter of marine mammals on the planet. Please join the seafood boycott and do not purchase Canadian seafood, nor travel to Canada, until this barbaric "tradition" is put to an end. To make your views known, you can write to the Prime Minister at: pm@pm.gc.ca and to the Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans at: Min@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

it is totally ludicrous to think that there is anything humane about the seal slaughter.

the arguments presented in favor of continuing this barbaric ritual - such as seals eat fish, it's tradition, it's worse in a slaughterhouse, don't try to make us vegetarian, humans are omnivores (which they aren't biologically) - are irrelevant, bogus, outright lies or some grand combination of these three.

canadian politics support and subsidize this farce simply because they want the newfoundland vote. the politicians couldn't careless what is happening to their national image.

unfortunately, since canadians can't get their act together, the usa and europe will once again end this brutal embarrassment as they did in the 80s and this time bury it for good.

Only a totally ignorant, insentitive and morally bankrupt human being would support the wholesale torture and slaughter of baby animals, especially intelligent and sentient beings like seals.

There is no justification whatesover for this slaughter, not moral, not financial, not cultural. It is an shameful abomination that should have been outlawed many years ago. Canada seemingly has no moral compass when it comes to this issue.

We who have compassion for these innocent and defensless animals pray that the European Union will go ahead with their proposed ban on seal products and hope that this leads to the death of this industry which has survived for far too long and should be banished to the very darkest pages of Canadian history books forever.

Not so that Trader Joe's is keeping its pledge! I was just at the Trader Joe's location on Chagrin Blvd. in Woodmere (near Beachwood) in Ohio yesterday, and saw Canadian wild salmon in its freezer case. (I no longer purchase fish, etc. because I'm vegan; just wanted to see if they were keeping their pledge, but they're NOT.) I noted a few years ago that the Trader Joe's in Westlake, Ohio, SEEMED to not be carrying any Canadian seafood, at least temporarily, SEEMINGLY due to pressure from activists. But now, I can tell you unequivocally that the TJ's on Chagrin Blvd. on the east side of Cleveland, indeed, stocks wild caught Canadian salmon. I commented on it to one of the stock guys; he seemed interested. Anything I can to do further challenge TJ's?

As an HSUS employee, I can help to clarify your question Lucy.

Companies involved in the boycott can do one of three things. They can boycott Canadian snow crab; they can boycott seafood from sealing provinces (Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Nova Scotia); or they can boycott ALL Canadian seafood. Trader Joe's is focusing its efforts on seafood products from sealing provinces.

Thank you to Trader Joe's, all of the other companies involved, and the hundreds of thousands of people who are making the boycott a success!

Here is a link to restaurants that are participating in the boycott: http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/protect_seals/restaurant_locator/

And here is a link to grocery stores and other companies participating in the boycott: http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/protect_seals/why_a_boycott_of_canadian_seafood/businesses_supporting_seafood_boycott.html