Heather and Paul McCartney visit Canadian seal pups and call for an end the seal hunt

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Heather and Paul McCartney joined Respect for Animals and the Humane Society International today (Thursday 2 March) on the ice floes off Canada’s East Coast to observe newborn harp seal pups, just weeks before they will be clubbed and shot to death for their fur.

The visit to the seal nursery highlights the campaign to end the Canadian seal hunt - by closing global markets for seal products and to pressure the Canadian government to end the seal hunt for good.

In a joint statement, Heather and Paul said: ‘Previous Canadian governments have allowed this heartbreaking hunt to continue despite the fact that the majority of its citizens - as well as those in Europe and America - are opposed to it. We have complete faith that Prime Minister Harper will take swift and decisive action to end the slaughter of these defenceless seal pups for good.’

During the last three years alone, the Canadian government has allowed nearly 1 million seals to be slaughtered. 97% of the seals killed were less than 3 months of age, and the majority was less than 1 month old. A 2001 independent veterinarian report concluded that close to half of the seals examined were likely still conscious when skinned, causing “considerable and unacceptable suffering.”

Mark Glover, Director, Respect for Animals, said today: ‘I observed the seal hunt at close range last year, it was the most brutal sight I have ever seen, with conscious seals dragged across the ice with boathooks, wounded seals left to choke on their own blood, and seals being skinned alive. The commercial seal hunt is inherently cruel - it is a national disgrace’.

Sealers kill pups as soon as they have begun to moult - as young as 12 days old - and the skins of these seals are legally traded in Europe. Opinion polls consistently show the overwhelming majority of Canadians, Americans and Europeans oppose the commercial seal hunt. Mexico, Italy and Greenland are just the latest countries to take action to ban the trade in Canadian seal products.

Neil Trent, Executive Director, Humane Society International, added: ‘Heather and Paul McCartney are shining a bright light on the extraordinary spectacle of seal pups being born on the ice floes of Atlantic Canada, and they are signaling to the world that the impending commercial slaughter of these helpless creatures in an appalling and unconscionable act. This hunt is doing incalculable damage to Canada’ s name and reputation.’

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