Each year, citizens from around the globe join forces to protest Canada’s annual seal slaughter during the Global Day of Action Against the Canadian Seal Hunt (March 15th). This year, individuals and organizations participated in protests from Madrid to Warsaw to Ottawa to London. The international protests stem from the belief that Canada’s annual slaughter of seals is brutal and unnecessary.
Spanish animal right’s organization EquAnimal, organized one of the most innovative and popular protests – with a nude rally against the Canadian Seal Hunt.
International backlash against the Canadian Seal Hunt continues to grow. The USA, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Mexico, and Panama have either banned seal product trade, or have made moves towards implementing a ban. The European Union will soon vote on a European-wide proposal to ban trade in seal products.
In March 2009, the Honourable Senator Marc Harb, a member of the Senate of Canada, attempted to introduce a legislation to amend The Fisheries Act, effectively ending the commercial seal hunt while respecting treaty obligations and protecting the rights of Canada’s aboriginal people. However, no other colleague would back his proposal.
“Canada’s commercial seal hunt is a dying industry based primarily on demand for fur for luxury items,” explains Senator Marc Harb. “Canadian tax-payer dollars are supporting the commercial seal hunt – paying for icebreakers to provide access to seal herds, providing rescue support when sealers run into difficulty, developing and marketing seal products, and sending delegations abroad to defend the hunt and to lobby foreign governments.”
Get Involved
Contact Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and urge him to end the annual seal hunt:
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Contact the Honourable Senator Marc Harb and let him know you support the end of the seal hunt:
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Resources
EquAnimal: http://www.equanimal.org/
Stop The Seal Hunt: http://www.stopthesealhunt.ca/
HarpSeals.org: http://www.harpseals.org/
HSUS: http://www.hsus.org/protect_seals.html
Via: PlanetSave.com
Images courtesy of Periódico La Democracia.
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