Good news from Canada! Liberal Sen. Mac Harb's anti-seal hunt bill will finally be the subject of debate in the Senate thanks to the support of fellow Liberal Senator Larry Campbell who will allow his bill to move toward second-reading debate. Harb said Wednesday marks a historical turn of events, with both parties in the Senate voting unanimously to allow debate.

Sen. Harb also credits constituents’ opposition to the seal hunt and massive letter-writing campaigns that have pleaded with parliamentarians to end the seal slaughter. “Every step, every call, every email, every letter makes a difference,” Harb said.

Harb is the only senator who has openly opposed the seal hunt and will try once again Wednesday to table a bill that would prohibit non-Aboriginal commercial fishing for seals in Canadian waters. This is his 3rd attempt to do this as he has tried twice before, in 2010 and 2009, to introduce his bill. Unfortunately in the past every time he stood up in the Senate and asked his peers for support, he was met with silence. This time senators from different parties have indicated their support to him.

The department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada estimates there are about 5,000 to 7,000 sealers. The seal hunt used to be worth several million dollars, but the price of pelts has shot downwards with the closure of markets in Europe and now in Russia. The commercial industry is worth a fraction of what it once was.

Rebecca Aldworth, executive director of Humane Society International/Canada, issued the following statement in support of Canadian Sen. Mac Harb's bill to end Canada's commercial seal hunt.

"We've recently returned from the East Coast of Canada, where we observed yet another year of exceptionally poor sea ice conditions and massive seal pup mortality as a result. Yet instead of taking action to protect the seals, the Canadian government authorized sealers to club and shoot every surviving seal pup they found.

Despite a record high quota for harp seals and millions of dollars of government assistance for the sealing industry, the 2012 sealing season has been a bust for sealers. Even the artificial life support provided by unwilling taxpayers cannot keep this globally condemned, senseless slaughter alive. Between market and sea ice conditions, the end of the seal slaughter is inevitable.

Senator Harb's bill is timely and would effectively end the commercial seal slaughter in Canada. HSI/Canada further proposes that any legislation to end the seal slaughter be paired with a federal sealing industry buyout. This plan would involve the federal government ending the commercial seal slaughter, providing immediate compensation to sealers and investing in economic alternatives in the communities involved. Polling shows half of sealers holding an opinion are already in support of this plan and the overwhelming majority of Canadians are willing to fund it. Given sealers and other Canadians are willing to move beyond commercial sealing, it is time our government acted."

Three decades of warming in the North Atlantic has led to thinning ice cover in harp seal breeding grounds and drastically higher death rates among seal pups, according to a new study.

"There’s only so much ice out there and declines in the quantity and quality of it across the region, coupled with the earlier arrival of spring ice breakup, is literally leaving these populations on thin ice," said David W. Johnston of the Duke University Marine Lab, who led the study, published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLoS ONE.

"The kind of mortality we’re seeing in Eastern Canada is dramatic. Entire year-classes may be disappearing from the population in low ice years – essentially all of the pups die. It calls into question the resilience of the population."

Satellite records of ice conditions in the region, which go back to 1979, show sea-ice cover declining by as much as six per cent per decade in all four harp seal breeding grounds.

Female harp seals seek out the thickest, oldest ice packs in sub-Arctic waters every February and March to give birth and nurse their pups until they can swim and hunt on their own. They have developed unusually short 12-day nursing periods to adapt to the spring melt.

"As a species, they’re well-suited to deal with natural short-term shifts in climate, but our research suggests they may not be well adapted to absorb the effects of short-term variability, combined with longer-term climate change and other human influences such as hunting," Johnson said.

For the study, researchers reviewed satellite images of winter ice from 1992 to 2010 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence – a major breeding ground off Canada’s East Coast – and compared them with yearly reports of dead seal pup strandings in the region.

They also compared the stranding rates to recorded measurements of the relative strength of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), a climate phenomenon that controls the intensity and track of westerly winds and storms that greatly affects winter weather and sea ice formation in the region.

Their analysis revealed that higher pup mortalities occurred in the Northwest Atlantic harp seal herd in years with lighter ice cover and when the NAO was weaker.

It’s unclear whether seals will be able to adapt by moving to more stable ice habitats. While some harp seals have moved to new breeding grounds off Greenland's east coast, thousands return each year to traditional breeding grounds in the Gulf of St. Lawrence or along the Front, off northeast Newfoundland, regardless of ice conditions.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare funded the study.

Source

The harp seal population off of Canada's East Coast is at risk due to thinning sea ice cover caused by warming in the North Atlantic over the last 30 years, according to a new study. (Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)

Every spring just off the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrabor in Canada, the pregnant Harp Seals flock to the ice floes to give birth to their babies. When they are just over 2 weeks old and getting ready to shed their baby coats, these adorable baby seals with their big black eyes and soft fluffy white coats have become the targets of the largest marine animal slaughter ever. This slaughter has gone on for over 20 years.

Up to 6,000 Canadian fishermen (mostly of European descent from Canada) make their way to the ice floes and proceed to club, bludgeon, shoot, and skin hundreds of thousands of baby harp seals. Last year in 2010, over 67,000 baby harp seals were killed for the acquisition of their pelts. The Canadian fishing industry has promoted this seal slaughter for the out of work fishermen in the off season. To fuel the fire, the Canadian govt. has promoted the myth that the reason for the (manmade) collapse of the highly profitable Cod fishing industry was actually due to the harps seals eating the fish. In fact the collapse was due to massive overfishing by man.

Once the sealers (who travel on snowmobiles and icebreaking boats) find the baby seals, the senseless horror begins. The sealers approach the babies and club them with 'hakapiks' (long sticks with a hooked blade at one end). After clubbing the seals, they are supposed to make sure they are dead before skinning them. However many times this is not the case as was proven in an analysis performed by a panel of veterinarians that showed about 40% of the seals are actually skinned alive. Approximately 95% of the seals killed in this commercial seal 'slaughter' are no more than 3 months old.

Canada has a long history of reckless disregard towards it's marine life starting with allowing the fishermen to wipe out the North Atlantic cod fishery. Canadian Fisheries Minister Gail Shea, continues to use Canadian tax money into trying to find oversea's markets for dead seals by traveling around the world peddling seal skins and other seal products. The European Union has issued a ban on all seal products however Canada continues to try to legally overturn this.

U.S. and European animal activists are promoting the Canadian seafood and tourism boycott as the only way to end this senseless slaughter. Harp seals can live up to 20 years if allowed to live out a natural life. Please take a minute to make a difference for these beautiful baby Harp seals by signing the petitions below.




1- Canada must stop it's senseless baby Harp seal slaughters. Read the facts on this petition.


2- Letter to Canada officials
 Prewritten letter to Canada's government officials asking them to stop the annual baby seal slaughter because it is senseless,cruel and totally inhumane.





Baby Seal from winter on Vimeo.