allo Cé

[Animal 0]

Voici l'histoire de ces 1 000 000 peaux de phoques manquantes....



Where Did All the Seal Pelts Go? IFAW Demands Answers to 1,000,000 Missing Pelts



Wednesday, March 14, 2001


(Ottawa - 14 March 2001) - The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) called on the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans today to investigate serious discrepancies in the export of seal pelts.

IFAW's concerns were raised after the release of a report by the International Marine Mammal Association (IMMA). Ontario, which found that Canada has exported only 51 per cent of the almost 2 million pelts from seals killed between 1982 and 1999. The report, which relies exclusively on an analysis of official government trade statistics, was written by Janice Hannah, a scientist at IMMA.

"What happened to the other million pelts?" IFAW National Director Dr. Rick Smith asked. "Did they go into landfill, as we've seen happen before? Have they been stockpiled?"

"Most importantly, what was the economic benefit to killing a million seals if they weren't sold for export?"

According to the report, federal government subsidies from 1996 to 1999 appeared to contribute heavily to the number of seals killed but not exported. In 1998, for instance, only 115,771 pelts were exported from the 287,505 seals killed. The other 171,734 pelts are unaccounted for.

"The Auditor General should investigate whether seals were hunted simply for the sake of collecting the subsidy in the absence of any real markets," Dr. Smith said.

Dr. Smith said the report provides further proof that the Atlantic seal hunt - the largest hunt for marine mammals in the world - provides little or no economic benefit to Canadians. "This industry clearly operates by rules unlike those in any other sector of the economy," he said. "Federal and provincial governments should end their subsidies immediately and let the seal hunt survive or fail on its own."



For media-related inquiries, contact:
Contact:
Dave Loan
Press Officer
Tel: (613) 241-8996 ext. 227
Mobile: (613) 852-0589

http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx?oid=15286

[animo-aequoanimo 0]

On n'a jamais su ce qu'il était advenu de ces peaux, n'est-ce-pas ?

[Animal 0]

Non jamais Cé ! C'est vraiment écoeurant et révoltant !!!!!!!!

[animo-aequoanimo 0]

Merci Do !