Hot Blood in Frigid Waters - The Barbarous Slaughter Has Begun

This morning on the East Coast of Canada, the annual massacre of seal pups began in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Canada has acted with gross irresponsibility allowing politics and pride to dictate the quotas set for this year.

There is no scientific justification for raising the quota by five thousand to 325,000 seal pups this year. The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the most incompetent and mismanaged and unscientific bureaucracy in the Canadian government, has completely ignored the devastating impact of global warming and the loss already of tens of thousands of seal pups because there is no ice for them to survive upon.

The Gulf of St. Lawrence is virtually free of solid ice. The seals have been desperately clinging to shore fast ice in tiny pockets. There is no central herd of harp seals anywhere in the Gulf.

Nonetheless, the ignorantly-cruel seal killers have taken their boats into the Gulf in an effort to shoot every seal in sight. There will not be much blood on the ice this year but the sea will be saturated with it. The shooting of seals results in a loss on average of one for one and the unrecovered seals do not get included in the quota.

More than a half a million seals will die this spring from drowning, from clubbing, and from the rifles of sealers.

It is a national disgrace yet instead of listening to world opinion, Canadian politicians and some Canadian media are digging in out of misguided national pride to defend the slaughter and cruelty inflicted on the seals.

We know the Boycott of Canadian Seafood products is effective. The Canadian media has become so desperate to negate this effectiveness that they have enlisted the aid of the Canadian Center for Consumer Freedom, a right-wing public relations forum for the tobacco, alcohol, and food producers.

Without verification, the media is parroting the propaganda of the Center saying that the boycott is a fraud and is having no effect.

They can believe this if they wish. We don't really care what the Canadian media or politicians think or preach. With Trader Joe's, Whole Foods Market, Wild Oats, Marks, Spencer, and major wholesalers signed onto the boycott, we know it is having an effect. When politicians in Canada spend time and energy negating the impact of the boycott, we know it is having an effect. We know the boycott has cost more in the last year than the $16 million earned by the sealing industry.

Canada will listen to economic facts and when the costs far exceed the profits, Canada will be forced to make a decision to end the slaughter of seals.

When Captain Paul Watson debated Canadian Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette on March 22nd on the CTV national Mike Duffy program, she accused Sea Shepherd of black-mailing Canada with the boycott and admitted that it was hurting the Canadian fishing industry.

Captain Watson responded by saying that was the point - to hurt the industry until the killing of seals is ended.

This morning in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the sealers are on their boats searching for seals, shooting each one they see and losing one for each one they recover. The helicopters of the hunt observers and protesters are grounded by the weather.

A report from one of the Sea Shepherd crew in Prince Edward Island (PEI) said that there are no seals near that province and the 2% of the quota allotted to PEI will most likely not be taken.

It is doubtful if the quota of over 90,000 seals in the Gulf will be taken due to the ice conditions. If not, the government will seek to up the quota on the seal kill off the east coast of Labrador and Northern Newfoundland.

But today, some seals are dying and bleeding into the sea. The killing, this abhorrent annual atrocity, this barbaric ritualistic tradition of suffering and slaughter has begun.

Once more Canada displays its shame to the world. And the world is disgusted.

Canadian Media Report (Video)

http://news.sympatico.msn.ca/National/#PS

In this report, Heather and Paul McCartney voice their opinion on the hunt beginning, Prime Minister Stephen Harper calls the protest propaganda and the right-wing group public relations firm Center for Consumer Freedom denies the boycott is having any effect without demonstrating any evidence to back this up.

The National Post Poll (Canadian Newspaper Poll)

As of Saturday morning the 25th, with 7264 votes cast, 58% were against the hunt, 36% were in favor of the hunt and 5% were undecided.