Un article sur Anthony Marr...

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Activist takes seal hunt fight to the streets


Angela Anderson
Wednesday July 05, 2006

Cochrane Times — Over the years, wildlife preservationist Anthony Marr has taken up prestigious causes such as the use of endangered animals in Chinese medicine and the hunting of endangered whales in Japan.
His most recent plight to restore wilderness has come very close to home.
The Atlantic Canadian seal hunt has been the centre of controversy between animal rights advocates and the people that say it is their livelihood, and now Marr is taking on the task of raising more awareness around the subject, right here in Alberta.
“To protect somebody’s part-time job, I really don’t think it’s a worthy exchange,” says Marr from his home in Vancouver.
Marr made it clear he has nothing against the hunters personally, and many of them have displayed heroics in the past, however, he believes the annual seal hunt a past-time that should remain as such.
“There are many things in the world today inherited from days past, and which don’t fit with today’s criteria,” he says. “The seal hunt is one of them.”
Marr says he feels it’s his duty to do something.
“They’re dead set on destroying seals, so I have no choice to be dead set against it.”
To show he’s serious, Marr has planned a series of motorcades through Canadian and American cities and towns, ending in a lecture at the different locations.
On July 15, his motorcade will roll through Cochrane, stopping at the top of Cochrane Hill on Highway 1A to answer questions from curious residents.
“The purpose of the Funeral Motorcade for the Seals is to convert dry statistics, which do not reach the gut level, into horrendous visions that will move the compassionate heart to action,” Marr says.
“At one meter per seal, a single file of 325,000 seals would stretch along Highway 1 for 325 kilometres from Calgary all the way to the Rogers Pass.”
On this particular stretch, he will begin in Banff at 9 a.m. and stop in Canmore and then in Cochrane at around 10:30 a.m.
The journey ends at the Calgary Central Library, where Marr will provide a lecture about his ventures.
Marr was born in China in 1944, while his family was on the run because of the cultural revolution.
When Communist China was formed, his family was forced to take refuge in Hong Kong, and then he moved to Canada in 1965 to attend university.
Marr has a physics degree, and worked as a geophysicist with mining companies in B.C. and Manitoba, and then became an environmentalist and a wildlife preservationist.
He has led well-known plights such as the banning of the use of endangered animals in Chinese herbal medicine, as well as the protection of the Bengal Tiger in India.
For more information on Marr’s projects, visit www.hope-care.org

http://www.cochranetimes.com/story.php?id=239986

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