FW: CBC invites your comments on: Maritime sealers lose market for pelts

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Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:59:13 -0800CBC invites your comments on: "Maritime sealers lose market for pelts"anthonymarrTo: anthony-marr; heal_our_planet_earth

Maritime sealers lose market for pelts

Last Updated: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 | 3:57 PM NT

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CBC News

 

 

 

Anti-sealing activists are on standby, awaiting definitive word that a seal hunt off Cape Breton is cancelled.

Members of Humane Society International intended to observe and document the grey seal hunt on Hay Island.

The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) hasn't closed

the hunt, but sealers learned Tuesday that they don't have a buyer for

their pelts.

"I think it is highly significant," said Mark Glover, director of the Humane Society International-U.K.

"There is a demand for these products around the world…. If we can

close down the market for these products, obviously you take away the

motivation for them being killed, and that's certainly part of our

plan."

Nearly 30 sealers from Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island expected to start the harvest last week.

As they waited for the weather to improve, they found out the seal

processing co-op in Newfoundland won't buy their pelts because the

co-op lost its market in Norway.

Sealers like Robert Courtney were counting on the extra money.

"If you can go out for a week or part of two weeks and make a couple

of thousand dollars at that time of the year, it means a lot," Courtney

said.

DFO had approved the harvest of 2,200 grey seals on Hay Island, a provincially protected area off Louisbourg.

There are an estimated 300,000 grey seals in the region.

 

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Story comments (2)Anthony_Marr wrote:Posted 2009/02/11

at 2:35 PM ETHaving

campaigned against the East Coast seal hunt since the 1990s, I have

come to the conclusion that the most effective way to terminate the

atrocity is to apply external pressure on Canada, particularly from

Europe. The fact that many European countries have individually banned

Canadian seal products attests to the cruelty of the massacre on the

universal standard. Canada kills over 1/4 million baby harp seals every year. What does 300,000 skinned baby seal

carcasses altogether look like? A huge mountain of red, or, if strung

out end-to-end single-file, at 1 metre per seal, the dead seal line

would stretch 300 km along any highway, including that between Toronto

and Ottawa.The end is nigh.Anthony Marr

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z___s____ wrote:Posted 2009/02/11

at 2:31 PM ET2,200/3,300 x 100 = 0.73

 

less than one percent of the population.

 

The instument used to kill seals is specially designed to do just that in one hit. They aren't bludgeoned to death.

 

Why does this continue to be such a big deal?-----------------------Anthony Marr, founder and president

Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE) www.HOPE-CARE.org www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr

www.YouTube.com/AnthonyMarrwww.HomoSapiensSaveYourEarth.blogspot.com

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