Rebecca Aldworth/HSI

Tell the Canadian government to protect baby seals!

In recent years, climate change has caused the lowest sea ice formations in recorded history off of Canada’s East Coast. For the seals who give birth on the small fragile ice floes, this is a disaster. Despite the sea ice deterioration, the Canadian government is allowing commercial sealers to slaughter the surviving baby seals.

Tens of thousands of these poor pups—having already survived the destruction of their sea ice habitat—will be shot at and clubbed for their fur, and many wounded animals will escape and die slowly. Others—some likely while still conscious—will be impaled on metal hooks, dragged onto bloody boat decks, and beaten to death.

There are also growing indications the Canadian government is working to expand the commercial seal slaughter. Just months ago, the federal government hosted a "seal summit," comprised of sealing and fishing industry groups, and refused entry to organizations advocating for an end to the slaughter, including HSI. The outcome of this meeting was a government commitment to the expansion of global seal product markets.

We must speak out for baby seals now! Please urge the Canadian government to end the commercial seal hunt once and for all and issue emergency directives to protect baby seals from the worst kinds of suffering this year.

Your Message

Subject*

Prime Minister

Justin

Trudeau

Prime Minister

Minister

Joyce

Murray

Minister of Fisheries

Dear Minister Trudeau and Minister Murray,

I am writing to urge you to take immediate action to end the commercial seal slaughter in Atlantic Canada. The impacts of climate change provide more than ample justification for a swift government policy change.

In recent years, we have witnessed the lowest sea ice formation off of Canada’s east coast in recorded history. For the ice breeding harp seals that are the targets of commercial sealing, it is a disaster. Harp seals return to their main whelping sites each year and give birth on any ice they can find. When that ice is scarce and fragile, as has been the case in many recent years, it breaks up and melts before the pups are strong enough to survive in the open water, resulting in mass mortality. Canadian government scientists clearly state that the sea ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off of Newfoundland will continue to deteriorate and that the resulting pup mortality will have a “severe impact” on the harp seal population. Any government committed to a precautionary approach to wildlife management would immediately stop the commercial hunting of an ice-dependent species whose ice habitat is quickly vanishing.

Climate change is also making commercial seal killing methods even more inhumane. Veterinary studies have strongly emphasized the severe suffering that results from shooting seals in or near open water, given the high wounding rates documented in the Canadian seal hunt, and the ability of wounded seals to escape beneath the water’s surface where they die slowly and are not retrieved. As ice conditions deteriorate, almost all commercial sealing will happen in these conditions. Moreover, when seals are shot in open water or on ice too fragile for a sealer to stand on, they are retrieved with gaffs (long wooden poles with metal hooks) without the sealers first being able to physically confirm that the seal has died. This results in many seals being impaled, while conscious, on metal hooks and hoisted onto bloody boat decks before they are beaten to death. Such gruesome images have been consistently filmed in the commercial seal hunt in years with low ice cover.

Ninety-eight percent of the seals killed in Canada’s commercial seal hunt are pups less than three months of age. These pups struggle every year to survive melting sea ice, storms and other environmental threats. It is unacceptable to allow the survivors to be slaughtered in undeniably cruel ways to produce fur coats; that is why more than 38 countries have prohibited trade in seal products and others are in the process of doing so.

Alarmingly, while other nations are working to improve their treatment of wild animals in the wake of the pandemic, there are growing indications the Canadian government is working to expand commercial sealing. In November 2022 the federal government hosted a seal summit comprised of industry groups and refused entry to organizations advocating for an end to the slaughter. The outcome of this meeting was a statement by the Canadian Fisheries Minister committing to an expansion of global seal product markets and more involvement of industry (those with a vested interest in killing seals) in seal science. Notably, two new processing plants for seal oil have recently been established in Newfoundland.

For more than six decades, the world community—including the majority of Canadians—has soundly rejected the commercial slaughter of baby seals in Atlantic Canada. It is time this government re-examined its approach to seal management—which is woefully outdated and wildly out of step with the principles of animal welfare and marine conservation—and took meaningful action to end the commercial seal slaughter for good.  

Sincerely,

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