la chasse au phoque fera couler beaucoup de sang....

[linda lachapelle 0]

agir contre la chasse au phoque merci à vous tous

pm@pm.gc.ca, Min@dfo-mpo.gc.ca,
info@dfo-mpo.gc.ca, bru@international.gc.ca , paris@internationalgc.ca


Prime Minister Harper, Minister Hearn and Canadian Ambassador:

Canada's Fisheries and Oceans Department website urges me to "form opinions
based on the facts" regarding the Canadian seal hunt. I have determined
there is no ecological, financial or ethical defense for the hunt.
Therefore, I have pledged to boycott Canadian seafood and tourism until it
ends. I strongly encourage you to heed international opinion and permanently

cancel the hunt.

Reality: The annual slaughter of over 300,000 seals off Canada's East Coast
is the world's largest marine wildlife hunt. In three years, sealers killed
almost one million seals for their fur. The 2007 kill quota is 270,000 even
though treacherous ice conditions have already claimed 90% of newborn seals.

Reality: Scientists worldwide renounce Canada's hunt policy as reckless,
citing insufficient proof to link harp seals with depleted fish stocks.
Roughly 3% of the harp seal's food intake includes commercially caught cod.
Harp seals actually consume other species, such as squid, that prey on cod.
Eliminating harp seals could provoke a rise in cod predators. In fact,
scientists worry killing seals may hinder the recovery of ground fish
stocks.

Reality: Wholly 95% of seals butchered in the last five years were less than

three months old, most unable to eat solid foods or swim independently.
Considered "adults," pups who have shed their white fur are ambushed on the
ice.

Reality: Documentation in 2005 and 2006 shows whitecoat pups gunned down,
pounded in the skull, kicked in the face and trashed with hakapiks. Video
footage depicts sealers hauling alert animals over the ice with boathooks.
In 2001 a team of impartial veterinarians determined 42% of the seals they
examined did not suffer sufficient cranial injury to render them
unconscious. They concluded the seals were likely cognizant when skinned.

Reality: Despite the hunt's enormous scope, it has little financial
relevance. In Newfoundland, where 90% of sealers reside, seal-related income

constitutes less than one-tenth of 1% of the province's economy. Sealers
fish the rest of the year. Sealing generates barely one-twentieth of their
livelihoods.

As you know, seal commodities are banned in the United States. Polls
indicate nearly 80% of Americans and Europeans disapprove of Canada's seal
hunt (Penn, Schoen & Berland, 2002 and MORI, 2002), with a growing
contingent devoted to a Canadian seafood boycott. Convulsing animals in
rivers of blood disgraces Canada. Please do everything possible to halt this

indefensible hunt now.

Sincerely,