The woman was taken in to custody and Shea finished her speech after wiping the pie from her face.The Canadian Seal Hunt is an annual event in which approx. 300,000 seals off Atlantic Canada are killed in an effort to save the cod fishing (because seals eat cod and are basically the wolves of the sea). The hunt takes place around Prince Edward Island, the gulf between the Gaspe Peninsula and Newfoundland, and the waters north of Newfoundland.
The government sets quotas for how many of each kind of seal (including babies) are allowed to be killed each year.
Baby whitecoat and blueback (aka hooded) seals are illegal to hunt other times of the year. Once they reach the age of 14 days however they become fair game for hunters. The reason its illegal to hunt babies is because of photos from 1987 showing baby seals being clubbed to death, which was bad press for then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare seals are routinely (about 45% of the time) skinned alive because sealers don't check for a blinking reflex to confirm death.
The Canadian government makes approx. $16 million / year off the sale of seal meat and fur, and also use the seal oil for various food products because its rich in Omega-3. The seal hunt is a substantial boost to the economies of Newfoundland and Labrador where unemployment is a shocking 15%.The price of quality seal pelts has dropped in the last 4 years from $105 to $15 CDN, suggesting the public no longer wants to wear products made from seal. To compensate this Stephen Harper's government is trying to promote seal meat and is now serving seal in the Canadian Parliament Hill restaurant.
Native Canadians maintain the right to hunt seals for food and for traditional ceremonies.
"The seal hunt is a substantial boost to the economies of Newfoundland and Labrador where unemployment is a shocking 15%." .....also seals are 'wolves of the sea" ? That sentence was not in parenthesis.
ReplyDeletethe seal hunt is corporate welfare, period, and an international embarrassment to this country.......a tiny fraction of Newfoundlanders are involved in the hunt, so please fact check your information.
Darrell clearly is not a hunter and has never had to hunt or fish for his food.
Delete"corporate welfare"? You're one of those tree-hugging people who think deer hunting should be banned (which would result in a huge increase in car accidents). As it stands deerhunting is only part of the solution as various provincial governments deliberately cull deer in order to control their populations. The problem essentially is that deer don't have many predators in various parts of the country and in order to prevent overpopulation hunting them is a necessary action.
The same problem exists with seals. Not many predators, especially south of Newfoundland. Thus a routine cull is a necessary action to keep fish numbers up.
Darrell doesn't see the big picture.