HELP STOP THE EXPANSION OF THE COMMERCIAL SEAL HUNT!
UPDATE:
As of mid-2024, an incredibly problematic report has been put together by 14 Canadian Senators, Sealing the Future: A Call to Action. This report is being used to convince the Canadian government to expand the commercial seal hunt in addition to persuading the European Union (EU), using lies and misinformation, to end its ban on the sale of seal products. If the EU does this, it would be devastating to the seals who are being scapegoated as decimating fish populations. Climate change is impacting the ice floes where they are typically born and will therefore further take a toll on their population.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre could become the next Prime Minister. Poilievre has pledged to expand the commercial seal hunt off Atlantic Canada. In March 2023, he stated, “The mighty Atlantic salmon [is] being gobbled up by the excessive population of seals… the solution, of course, is for us to harvest more seals [but we can’t] because of the ‘eco nuts’ and so-called animal rights people…have no common sense whatsoever.”
Picture these incredible beings trying to live on the already diminishing ice flows only to have someone come and brutally take their lives, to turn them into some trinket, piece of fur or product to consume. The industry is still pushing for the sale and consumption of seal oil as a source of omegas. All completely unethical and all a tactic to continue to keep afloat an industry that has no market and that is brutally violent.
How You Can Help
We intend to focus on whomever becomes Prime Minister, possibly Poilievre. He is not one to consult and he thinks we are all “eco nuts”. So, we need lots of help to win this issue.
Our colleagues at the Animal Protection Party of Canada have already placed two ads in The Hill Times, an Ottawa-based newspaper distributed to all Senators and Members of Parliament. More ads and other targeted communications and public pressure will be needed. Ads make clear to politicians that we are going to fight any attempt to increase the number of seals killed. Animal Alliance will be running social media ads to raise awareness. Please consider making a donation today!
We may not be able to stop all seal hunting, but we can fight to end subsidies paid for killing seals. End the subsidies and the number of seals killed will decline.
The seal hunt is a long-standing, regional tradition that some people want to continue in spite of its limited economic value. Your donations to Animal Alliance means we can keep fighting to save the seals, through mainstream and social media, and government engagement, during the election and after.
Please contact the Prime Minister to express your opposition to the commercial seal hunt. Urge the Prime Minister to stop subsidizing this hunt. Letters mailed to the Prime Minister can be sent postage-free. Please be polite in your correspondence. Personalized letters are best.
Prime Minister
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
T/ 613-992-4211
Write to your Member of Parliament (MP) and let them know that you oppose promoting an increase in killing seals and are concerned with the report from the Senators. If you don’t know who your MP is, use this link to search using your postal code. We highly encourage you to take time to call your MP or to write a polite, personalized letter.
Some ‘talking points’ you might like to add to your communications could include the following:
• As a Canadian I support the conservation of our native wildlife.
• Both harp and hooded seals must have broad areas of sea ice in the Atlantic region where they can give birth. That ice is increasingly absent, especially in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, one of two major locations for the seals, and recently recognized as the fastest warming region in the Northwest Atlantic.
• A new and more sophisticated method of estimating seal population sizes estimated there were millions fewer harp seals than the Canadian government claims.
• Seals, like dolphins and porpoises and also sharks, tuna and other large fish, are apex predators necessary for the health of oceanic ecosystems and all are facing significantly increasing survival risks, with many species or populations in serious decline.
• The Canadian government recently increased the fishing quota on codfish while claiming seals are eating them all, and in spite of scientists seeing no indication of an increase in cod in recent years, and also unable to either blame or exonerate seals for the failure of the cod population to increase.
• The seal hunt is a highly contentious issue, in Canada and worldwide and removing the ban would again lead to civil divisiveness.
• Now is the time for more, not less, protection for ice-dependent wildlife species in the Canadian Arctic.
• Most wildlife, and especially predatory animals, are overall in decline and putting market value on them equals putting a bounty on them, and now is not the time to do that. Seals are an integral part of the ecological whole of north polar waters under unprecedented decline. We must protect them.
We are very grateful for your time and support.
