The annual seal massacre in Canada has started. This year the Canadian government has set a target of over 280000 baby seals to be clubbed to death and skinned to provide coats, hats, handbags and other accessories for the fashion market.

This seal hunt is the largest commercial hunt for marine mammals in the world and has been met with protests from around the world for years now. And this year is no different. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) says the hunt should be stopped because it’s cruel, unsustainable and lacks proper monitoring from federal agencies. The European Union is currently being pushed to introduce a ban on commercial trading with seal skin in a few weeks. And just recently Russia decided to close down their seal hunt in the White Sea indefinitely.

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Up to 350000 newborn seals were estimated to be killed last summer in Canada, and the number is thought to be much bigger this coming summer. In 2005 the 98,5% of the babies killed weren’t even 2-months-old, and autopsies showed proved that most of them were still alive during the extraction of their fur.

If you want to help, don’t wait till summer to hear about these things again on the news. Sign the petitions of www.protectseals.org and stop buying cosmetics or clothes that contain seal fat or fur. Maybe a decrease in the demand on the market will decrease the number of seal murders.

Image credit: Mike Baird. Image licensed under a
Creative-Commons Attribution license.