Stop the Seal Slaughter! Urge Canada to End Shameful Killing

For centuries, pregnant harp seals have migrated from Greenland down the coast of Canada, stopping each spring to give birth on the ice floes off Newfoundland. And every year, the Canadian government funds a trade in which the baby seals are massacred by club-wielding sealers from the local fishing community while their pelts remain soft enough to sell on the international fur market. The commercial seal slaughter is not a subsistence activity for native peoples but an off-season fishing industry cash grab, and it accounts for less than 1 per cent of Newfoundland's economy.

Over the last few years, all major markets have banned seal-pelt imports, including the US, the European Union, Mexico, Taiwan and even Russia, which had been importing 95 per cent of Canadian sealskins. The only reason the Canadian government continues to defend this dead industry is because political parties crave Newfoundland's swing seats in Parliament. But now even local sentiment is turning, and Canadian officials are seriously examining whether the slaughter should end.

Sealing is surely on the way out, but we need your voice to reach the tipping point. The time is now to urge Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Keith Ashfield, Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird and Minister of International Trade Ed Fast to help bring the commercial seal slaughter to an immediate end by supporting a government buyout.

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