• March 21, 2006: Searching for the Seals
• March 23, 2006: By Any Means Necessary
• March 25, 2006: The Gulf Hunt Begins
• March 26, 2006: Targeting Seals and Observers
• March 27, 2006: Betrayed by the Government
• April 9: Fighting to Get to the Front
• April 11, 2006: No More Secrets
• April 13, 2006. Mob Mentality: Sealers Lay Siege to the Protect Seals Team
• May 15, 2006. The 2006 Canadian Seal Hunt: Violence, Betrayal...and Hope for the Road Ahead

March 21, 2006: Searching for the Seals

(photo: HSUS)

By Rebecca Aldworth

CHARLOTTETOWN, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND—For the second day in a row, the ProtectSeals team flew by helicopter over the Gulf of St. Lawrence, searching for the harp seal nursery. We had hoped to film the peaceful and pristine ice floes before human greed turns the Gulf into a bloody wasteland. As always happens when we visit the seal nursery, I felt a sense of devastation as I reflected that, in a few days, the commercial seal hunt in Canada will begin.

We flew over ice that should have been very familiar. Two weeks ago, I spent an amazing day in the same area with Heather and Paul McCartney, introducing them to one of nature’s greatest wonders, a spectacular glistening landscape filled with newly born pups nursing or sleeping on the ice, fearless in their innocence.

But today, the ice was not familiar at all: Where just two weeks before we had seen solid, giant pans large enough for several helicopters to land, we now looked down on open water broken up by tiny sections of crushed ice barely large enough to hold a seal.

We pushed on, convinced that, at any minute, we would come upon those expected vast ice pans covered with tens of thousands of seal pups. But after a full day of searching, we found none.

It was shocking to witness firsthand the dramatic effects of climate change. Record high temperatures and the resulting lack of ice cover off Canada's East Coast will have devastated all ice-dependent wildlife this year, including the harp seals. A chill gripped me as I realized that the lack of ice may have already killed the number of seals the Canadian government is allowing to be slaughtered in the Gulf under the current seal quota—long before the seal hunters have even left their ports.

Harp seals need the ice to give birth on, and they need the ice to remain solid during the crucial weeks it takes for the pups to develop enough to swim independently. For months, scientists have been predicting that the unusually low ice cover this year would lead to a very high incident of natural mortality in harp seals. And from what we saw today, it seems those predictions have come true. We spotted a few mother seals, but they were alone, their pups conspicuously absent. It is clear that many pups have likely already drowned.

Yet despite the grim evidence, the annual hunt, unbelievably, is set to begin in a couple of days. The pups who managed to survive the ice loss will be clubbed or shot to death for their fur. And if there are not enough baby seals still alive for hunters to kill in the Gulf, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans will simply allot a higher quota to the hunters who will in a few weeks be shooting seals in the waters northeast of Newfoundland. This year, the seals are twice devastated—once by the ravages of climate change and then again by human hunters.

As our helicopters headed back to Prince Edward Island, the fate of these seals and the irresponsibility of the Canadian government hit home. We passed over a harbor where many commercial sealing vessels were already moored, geared, and ready to seek and kill the few seal pups left in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. According to the Canadian government, about 40 sealing vessels will go out to hunt seals this year—the surviving baby seals simply don’t stand a chance.

Yesterday the head of one of the sealers' associations remarked smugly to Canadian media that the bad ice conditions will make it difficult for our helicopters to land and for the ProtectSeals team (and journalists) to document the commercial seal hunt. He is right in one way: This will be a challenging hunt for us to film. But we are absolutely dedicated to ensuring that when this hunt happens, we are there to bear witness.

And we need your help to do it. Every day that these seals are killed, we will be here. We will post our photographs, footage, and reports directly from Prince Edward Island. And that is where you come in: Please be a part of our expedition. We need you to log on to www.protectseals.org—tell your friends, your family, and your coworkers what is happening here in Canada. With your help, we are working to ensure this is the last slaughter any of us will ever have to see.

Rebecca Aldworth is Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues for The HSUS.

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March 23, 2006: By Any Means Necessary

(photo: HSUS)

By Rebecca Aldworth

CHARLOTTETOWN, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND—Today freezing rain made it frustratingly impossible for our helicopters to fly over the Gulf of St. Lawrence to look for the harp seal pups who will be the target of Canada’s commercial seal hunt.

You see, the weather doesn’t stop the sealers—their vessels are already on the move. Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has announced that the seal hunt will begin at 6 a.m. this Saturday. The sealing boats are already leaving their ports, converging on the few seal pups who cling to ice pans barely large enough to support them as they still struggle to learn how to swim.

The callous disregard these sealers show for the natural world around them amazes me. That these seals must endure their icy habitat literally disappearing in the wake of unseasonably warm temperatures is bad enough. Worse still is that so many of the pups born this year have most likely drowned because the ice melted beneath them before they were old enough to swim proficiently. But it is unthinkable that in the next few days, sealers will club or shoot to death the few surviving pups for their fur.

The vanishing ice and seals forced the DFO to relocate the hunt far to the east, near Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, where it was reported there were still pockets of seals left alive.

Yesterday I heard the sealers gloat to the media that the treacherous ice conditions would make it impossible for The HSUS ProtectSeals team to land helicopters on the ice and document the hunt this year. Hearing that, I renewed my pledge to myself that wherever the sealing boats traveled, we would be there to document the killing.

Today we secured a boat that's able to take us directly into the sealing areas and found helicopter pilots brave enough to attempt the flight to the ice. Even if it isn't safe for them to land, they will fly low enough for us to film the hunters as they conduct their cruel business. The hunters will not escape our cameras.

None of us can believe that we will soon witness another seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It's something we are all trying not to think about as we prep to leave for the hunt area. But being there and recording what happens is the only way we can end this hunt for good. Whatever it takes, we must be there to film and document this slaughter. And I know that the talented, dedicated ProtectSeals team, working with the support of so many others from around the world, will do everything in their power to ensure it is the last one any of us will ever have to witness.

Rebecca Aldworth is Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues for The HSUS.

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March 25, 2006: The Gulf Hunt Begins

(photo: HSUS)

By Rebecca Aldworth

Today the commercial seal hunt began in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Last night The HSUS team left Nova Scotia on a 120-foot ice-class vessel outfitted with two smaller inflatable boats, seeking the seal hunters. As we pulled out of the port, it became clear that the Gulf ice had pushed into the narrow harbor, blocking us in. A very tense few hours ensued, as our captain navigated us through pans of crushed ice and the team struggled to sleep during the night, jarred awake often by the sounds of our boat crashing into ice.

This morning I awoke at daybreak, just one hour from St. Paul’s Island, north of Cape Breton. We searched for the next few hours for sealing boats, having heard from an earlier reconnaissance flight that they would be in the area.

Then I glimpsed sealing vessels in the distance, looking, as they always do to me, like black flies dotted across the horizon—an unwelcome intrusion into this place that has become my second home.

We also spotted baby seals—just a few of them—clinging to tiny pans of ice barely large enough to support their weight. They were so young, most of them whitecoats just a few days old and ragged jackets, just days older. They looked so helpless out on the ice.

As we neared a group of several sealing boats, we heard gunshots. We quickly deployed the small boats to investigate. This is the first time the ProtectSeals team has ever used small boats to access the hunt area, and we know it will be dangerous. As I climbed into the small boat, I paused for a moment to measure the mood of those with me. But as I looked at their faces, I saw nothing but a commitment to documenting this hunt. Andrew and Dan, our inflatable boat operators, steered us away from our larger vessel.

We sped as fast as we could towards two sealing vessels. Immediately, we spotted a seal carcass—not discarded on the ice as I’m used to seeing but left to rot in the ocean. The seal’s blood colored the surrounding water; her glassy eyes stared up at me through a watery grave.

One of the reporters traveling with us asked how it felt to see this. I tried to come up with words adequate to express my emotions—a mixture of anger that these fishermen would ever consider killing these defenceless baby seals for something as trivial as a fur coat, and guilt that this seal died because our campaign couldn’t stop the hunt in time.

We followed the path of the sealing vessel, determined to film the next kill. Blood streaked the ice floes that nearly blocked our path. Still we pushed through in our small boats.

Suddenly, the sealing vessel turned and motored towards us at high speed. We desperately tried to turn our boats around quickly enough to get out of its path. The sealing boat narrowly missed us. As we were tossed in its wake, a sealer threw part of a seal carcass into one of our boats.

This behaviour is nothing new; it is the way sealers react to our presence every year. They know, as we do, that the images we film each year are closing global markets for seal products.

We turned to find another group of sealers to film, letting our larger vessel break the ice before us as we neared a spot we’d been told would contain sealing boats. Soon after, a boat came our way, bearing down on a single seal on an ice floe between us.

The sealing vessel stopped; clearly, the sealers were nervous about killing this baby seal in front of our cameras. This pup was a very young ragged jacket—probably no more than three weeks—and very playful. He moved toward us, making those soft baby seal cries so familiar to me. At another time, this would have been enchanting, but all we could feel was horror as we looked past him at the sealer behind him, rifle poised.

But suddenly the gun was lowered, and the sealing boat began to back away. In a moment of exultation, we realized that, though we had made no move to stop the killing, our presence had just saved the life of this baby seal. As we sped after the sealing vessel, I turned to watch him moving around securely on his ice flow—for once, nature was being left as it should be.

Unfortunately, other pups were soon to die. The sealers tried to shield their actions, positioning their vessel between us and the seals they were killing. But we pushed through the ice floes and managed to get close enough to film what they were doing. One sealer jumped over the side of the vessel onto the ice , clubbed a pup brutally on the skull, then hooked her and dragged her back to the boat for skinning.

A series of gunshots rang out, and the sealing vessel began to move away. At that moment, a Coast Guard ice breaker came onto the scene, and helicopters took off from its decks. Some sealers had become trapped in the ice and needed the Coast Guard to come rescue them. We backed away and proceeded to another sealing area.

After a full day of filming, we came across a fair-sized solid ice pan next to a smaller one, where a tiny ragged jacket lay. We climbed onto the pan and sat down in the setting sun, looking at her. This baby seal looked so innocent, her eyes shutting slowly as she drifted into sleep, not knowing that the humans near her might easily have been hunters. In that moment of peace, I vowed to this baby seal that we would stop the hunt—that if she survived this slaughter she would never be at risk from hunters again.

As I write this, the sun has gone down, and we are preparing for another day of filming—because as long as we are here, documenting the brutality of this seal hunt, we know that we are doing everything possible to ensure this is the last one we will ever have to witness.

Rebecca Aldworth is Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues for The HSUS.

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March 26, 2006: Targeting Seals and Observers

(photo: HSUS)

By Rebecca Aldworth

GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE—The second day of Canada’s commercial seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence opened in the midst of a thick fog. The grey sky reflected the mood of The HSUS ProtectSeals team. We were all well aware this would be a very difficult day, one in which we would witness many of the remaining seal pups being clubbed and shot to death for their fur.

We also knew that this might be the last day we could obtain footage of the hunt: There were so few seals in the area—bewildered looking pups trying their best to stay afloat on their precarious platforms of ice—and the sealers were quickly killing them off.

The night before we had dropped anchor between 11 sealing boats. All night we heard their chatter on the radios and watched their lights gleam across the inky ocean. They began to move at 4 a.m., and we were not far behind. As soon as it was fully light outside, we spotted four boats and sped in our small inflatable boats toward them.

I normally observe this hunt on foot because the ice floes are usually strong enough to support several helicopters. But this year the ice was thin and fragile, so we were forced to resort to basing ourselves on a larger vessel and deploying small, inflatable boats to move through the icy water. Sitting in the inflatables provided a unique perspective: I was filming from the same height as the seal pups—and those sealing vessels looked 10 times as intimidating.

We gained quickly on two large sealing boats, and they led us directly into an ice pack. As the ice closed in behind our inflatables, it became obvious that we had no means of escape. Almost immediately, the sealing boats turned and charged. We frantically tried to move our inflatables out of their way, backing up against the unyielding ice and struggling not to capsize in the sealing vessels’ wake as they narrowly missed hitting us.

Finally, the sealers moved on and began to shoot randomly at the pups lying across the ice. It was horrific to watch, the seals would hear the shouts of the sealers and crawl frantically to the edge of the ice pans, only to be struck by a bullet. Often, the bullets did not kill the seals immediately, and the sealer would shoot them again and again as they tried to escape. The air quickly became heavy and bitter with the smell of gun powder.

A three-week-old pup was shot several times as she frantically tried to escape beneath the water’s surface. As is often the case with open-water shoots, the seal slipped beneath the surface of the water and was never recovered.

The sealers on this vessel were resourceful: If the ice was thick enough, they would jump onto it and club the seals to death with a hakapik—a crude club with a metal spike on top. (Sealers prefer to club seals because the pelt processing company deducts several dollars from the price paid for each bullet hole found in it.) The sealers would hop from ice pan to ice pan, the baby seals looking up at them in alarm as the clubs struck down at them.

So many of the pups I saw killed were still almost completely covered in white fur, legally hunted because of a loophole in Canadian law that allows baby seals to be killed the moment they begin to shed their fluffy white coats. This often starts at 12 days.

We continued to follow these two vessels into a narrow channel of water between ice pans. The fog was moving in fast, and we lost sight of our larger vessel. Now we were alone, our inflatables completely unprotected against the sealing boats. Without warning, one of the sealing boats turned sharply and raced back toward us. We immediately backed up our inflatables but were again trapped against the ice. Watching the sealing vessel coming directly toward us at high speed, I was sure we would be capsized into the ocean. This was serious: If we were knocked into the frigid water, our survival suits could protect us for only a couple of minutes.

Our driver backed the inflatable up as far as he could against the ice, grinding our propeller into a floe. Just feet away, our other inflatable struggled just as helplessly. Together, we watched the sealing boat bear down on us. In some part of my mind, I took small comfort knowing that, should an official from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) be observing, we could not be accused of being violation of the conditions of our observation permits, which state that we must stay at least 10 meters from sealers in the pursuit of seals. The sealers on this boat were not trying to kill seals—there were none in our area. From where we were, it was clear they were trying to capsize us.

Until the very last moment, I thought the sealing boat would stop; the captain must have known that he was putting our lives at risk. But with a loud crash, the sealers rammed the inflatable next to us at high speed, damaging one of its propellers. The driver had no choice but to push his inflatable up onto an ice floe to escape—a dangerous maneuver but his only choice. We were caught in the wake, and our driver struggled to control the inflatable as the sealing vessel crashed by just a foot away. I shouted at the captain that he was breaking Canadian law and risking human lives. He smiled as he pulled away.

I looked up, and saw the reason for his humor—the second sealing vessel was now bearing down on us at a high speed. If it hit us, we would be finished. Thankfully, it swerved. I couldn’t understand why until I looked back and saw our larger, and more imposing, vessel appear miraculously out of the fog. These cowardly sealers were happy to take us on in our tiny boats, but they were not so anxious to do battle with a 120-foot vessel.

This kind of aggression is standard behavior for the sealers—I see it every year that I document this hunt. To document the killing, we must simply move on.

We caught up with another boat, and the sealers yelled at us, throwing seal carcasses in our direction. We filmed in horror as a sealer jumped off onto an ice pan, running with his hakapik raised towards a helpless whitecoat. He suddenly dropped to his knees and picked her up, only to slam the terrified pup into the ice and run back to his sealing boat, laughing. Canada’s Marine Mammal Regulations forbid this kind of treatment of the seals, but we see it routinely up here. On these ice floes, the sealers have good reason to believe they are above the law.

Minutes later, a Canadian Coast Guard ice breaker moved into position and deployed a small motor boat full of DFO and Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers. They approached our boat, and for one second I actually imagined they were coming to investigate the ramming incident. But of course they were not here to check on the sealers—they never are—they wanted to verify our observation permits. For the next half hour, they meticulously examined the permits, checking our identification against the paperwork. Then, grudgingly, they allowed us to proceed.

For the rest of the day, we filmed the slaughter of hundreds of baby seals. The climate of aggression continued, with sealing vessels charging at us repeatedly and throwing seal carcasses at our inflatables. At one point, two sealing boats chased us through the ice floes, and our vessel captain realized we were in serious trouble. He radioed repeatedly to the Coast Guard, asking for assistance. No one responded.

Once, a bloody flipper landed on the floor of the inflatable right before me. I could make out the rudimentary fingers that make up the flippers of the harp seal pups—they resemble human hands. For a moment I could only stare around me at the arena of carnage and chaos that these once-pristine ice floes had become. As tears streamed down my face, I vowed again to make this the last hunt any of us would ever have to witness.

Rebecca Aldworth is Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues for The HSUS.

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March 27, 2006: Betrayed by the Government

(photo: HSUS)

CHARLOTTETOWN, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND—I write this journal not from the ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where I should be documenting the seal hunt, but instead from Prince Edward Island.

Today I am ashamed of the behaviour of my government—the Canadian government—which sunk to new lows to keep observers from recording the commercial slaughter of baby seals for their fur. In my eight years on the ice during the annual Canadian seal hunt, I have never seen such blatant misuse of power to stop observers from bearing witness to the cruelty on ice.

Late yesterday afternoon, I and six other legally permitted observers—including five staff members from The Humane Society of the United States and one media representative—were arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for allegedly violating the terms of our observation permits by coming within 10 meters of a sealing vessel while that vessel was in pursuit of seals.

Hours earlier, two sealing vessels had repeatedly charged at our small inflatable boats, putting us at risk as our boats pitched back and forth in their wake. Our main vessel was stationed nearby, and recognizing the threat we were under, our captain radioed a nearby Canadian Coast Guard boat twice, asking the Coast Guard for assistance. He received no response.

Thankfully, the sealers grew tired of their dangerous antics, and the two vessels moved off into the ice floes separately. We followed one, determined to continue documenting the slaughter.

Our two inflatable boats trailed the sealing vessel through the ice at a safe distance—at least 30 meters away. But suddenly the sealers turned around and cut us off. With heavy ice on one side and the sealing vessel bearing down on the other, we had no choice but to cross quickly in front of the sealing vessel to escape a collision.

At that moment, officers from the RCMP and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) exited the cabin of the sealing boat where they had been hidden from view. They called us over and accused us of having been within 10 meters of a sealing vessel. The RCMP officers immediately confiscated our footage of the hunt (including footage showing how we came to cross in front of the sealers' vessel) and then informed us that we were under arrest for violating the conditions of our observation permits. The five observers who were not Canadian were brought to the Coast Guard vessel and handcuffed. The Coast Guard held them for five and a half hours before finally returning them to our vessel.

No charges have yet been filed, but it has been made crystal clear to us by representatives of the DFO that they will not issue us any observation permits while the matter is being investigated. By the time this is resolved, the hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence will be over.

In a calculated political move, the Canadian authorities have effectively prevented The HSUS, and any journalists who might be riding in our boats or helicopters from documenting the rest of this hunt. But their efforts are in vain: We have already filmed hours of the killing, and the footage is posted on our website.

As we waited for the American and British observers held captive on the Coast Guard boat to be returned to us, I stood on the deck of our vessel. It was now completely dark, and the sealing boats had already moved miles away from us to anchor for the night. As I looked out across the black ocean, I saw the massive and brightly lit Coast Guard boat stationed about half a mile away.

In the quiet, I began slowly coming to terms with the knowledge that the Canadian government will sink to any depths to protect the sealing industry.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but somehow I was. In the back of my mind, I had always hoped that the Coast Guard presence at the seal hunt each year might be intended to ensure the safety of observers as well. But a line was crossed when the Coast Guard failed to respond to our distress calls but came to the aid of the sealers by arresting seven peaceful observers for the alleged crime of getting out of the way of a sealing boat. It has now become very clear to me that if you try to document this hunt, the Canadian government will define you as its opponent.

Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Canadians oppose this seal hunt, the government agencies that are represented at this hunt—the RCMP, the DFO, and the Coast Guard—are there for one reason and one reason only: to stop the public from seeing the cruelty that happens just off the east coast.

The hunt is continuing, and I am devastated that we are unable to continue to bear witness. But I take some small comfort in the knowledge that the Canadian government would not sink to these depths unless it was very afraid of the effectiveness of our ProtectSeals campaign. I know that the government’s attempts to stop us from spreading the word about the obscenity that is the seal hunt have failed. We are winning.

Earlier in the day, two silvery adult harp seals swam by our inflatables, diving in and out of the water in tandem. They came close and then turned to gaze on us with their luminous black eyes. For a moment I felt like they were giving us a message, thanking us for our perseverance. I looked back and mentally promised them that we would do everything in our power to end this hunt for good.

The hunt observers, the seals, and the public have all been failed by my government. But I know with absolute certainty that with your support, The HSUS and our powerful network of like-minded organizations and individuals will make good on our promise—that we will end the Canadian seal slaughter. It is only a matter of time.

Rebecca Aldworth is Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues for The HSUS.

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April 9: Fighting to Get to the Front

(photo: HSUS)

By Rebecca Aldworth

MONTREAL—I write this as I prepare to leave for the third, largest, and most dangerous phase of the commercial seal hunt: the slaughter that occurs in what is called "the Front."

In the stormy waters northeast of Newfoundland, more than 230,000 seals will be killed for their skins—bringing the official harp seal death toll this year to 325,000.

At the Front, seal hunters will, for the most part, shoot at seal pups from moving boats. Many of their moving targets will not die quickly. Even the Canadian government admits at least 10,000 of the seals shot at this year will be wounded and escape beneath the water’s surface, where they will die slowly. Their bodies will not be recovered, and their deaths will not be counted in official kill statistics.

Many people mistakenly believe that shooting seal pups is more humane than clubbing them to death. But I know differently. I have watched footage of a seal struggling while sealers shot at her…for the eight long minutes it took her to die. As she thrashed around in the water, desperately trying to crawl back onto the ice, the bullets hit her, one after another. Blood poured into the water all around her. I’ll never forget her—and the many reasons why fishermen shooting seal pups at sea can never be called humane.

I hate to think of what will happen on the ice and in the waters of the Front this year—I know exactly how brutal the killing is in this region. I also know that it is standard for sealers to slaughter nearly 150,000 seals in this area in less than two days.

Unseen Slaughter

Preparing for this trip to the Front is doubly hard, knowing that another 70,000 seals have just been killed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence—most of them in less than 48 hours.

I am heartbroken that six other observers and I were arbitrarily prohibited by the Canadian government from documenting that part of the hunt. These seals died without witnesses, which is exactly how the sealing industry wants it.

It is clear to me now the lengths to which the Canadian government is prepared to go to cover up the cruelty of the commercial seal hunt. In refusing to issue permits for The Humane Society of the United States to observe at the Front, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Loyola Hearn, has violated Canada's Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of the press, and the Marine Mammal Regulations. According to The Marine Mammal Regulations, the only reason permits can be denied is if observers have been convicted of an offense related to their observation in the past five years. Not only were our observers not convicted, they have not even been charged.

Eyes to the Front

But the Canadian government will not be able to keep the rest of the world from seeing truth.

After learning our permits had been denied, and with only a short time left to observe the hunt, The HSUS joined with the Franz Weber Foundation to pull together a new team of observers to go to the Front, document the cruel slaughter, and expose it worldwide.

I don’t know what awaits The HSUS team in Newfoundland, but I will be there to coordinate our expedition. Even as I depart for Newfoundland for this heartbreaking purpose, I know that we are winning the larger battle of making this the last slaughter anyone will ever have to witness.

Canada, the whole world is watching. We are here, acting as its eyes.

Rebecca Aldworth is Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues for The HSUS.

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April 11, 2006: No More Secrets

(photo: HSUS)

By Rebecca Aldworth

NEWFOUNDLAND—Tomorrow the commercial seal hunt will open again in the Front, the waters northeast of Newfoundland. At 6 a.m., sealers will begin to club and shoot to death every seal pup they find.

As of this writing, the sealing vessels had still not located any real concentration of seal pups. It’s not surprising—the ice cover in the Front is at the lowest since the 1960s, and many of the pups have probably already drowned as a result.

But the surviving seals’ good fortune will not hold out for long. There are already 200 large sealing vessels in position. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) expects the slaughter to be so massive that it plans to temporarily close the hunt in the Front tomorrow at 7 p.m., believing that the entire larger vessel quota of more than 110,000 seals (there is a separate quota for the boats smaller than 35 feet) will be killed in less than 13 hours.

If the DFO is right, at least two seals will die every second of the day tomorrow.

No More Secrets

The Front is the part of the hunt that goes on in secret. It normally occurs too far offshore for observers to reach by helicopter, which prevents us from recording the brutality that goes on there. For the same reason, this part of the hunt is almost entirely unmonitored by the Canadian government.

But the secret may soon be revealed. This year, the ice clung to shorelines, and our helicopters may be able to reach the sealing boats. If we are successful tomorrow, we will obtain the first film of the hunt in the Front in two decades.

This is vital to our campaign. The Canadian government tries to convince the public that almost all the seals killed in the Front are shot and that they die quickly and relatively painlessly. But we know nothing could be further from the truth.

Sealers shoot at seals from moving boats, often only wounding the pups with the first bullet. But the sealers are loathe to shoot the seals twice—the processing plants cut the price paid for seal skins for each bullet hole they find. I’ve watched this hunt from planes, and I’ve seen seals often left to suffer as they die slowly. I’ve seen sealers pull wounded seals onto sealing boats with long wooden boathooks, drag the struggling bodies on board, then skin the still flailing animals. Then they casually toss the bloody carcasses overboard.

Those thousands of dead will share the waters of the Front with other, uncounted, casualties. Even the Canadian government admits that more than 10,000 of the seals who are shot this year will be wounded, escape beneath the surface of the water, and then slowly bleed to death. Their bodies will not be recovered.

A Fellowship of Witnesses

I am disconsolate that I will not to be able to go to the ice in person. Each year, for so many years, I have stood with the seals as this unthinkable tragedy unfolds. But, in a calculated move, the Canadian government has barred me and several of my colleagues from the ice by refusing to issue us observation permits. Government officials obviously thought they could prevent The Humane Society of the United States from filming this hunt. They were wrong.

I am very proud that The HSUS and our friends at the Franz Weber Foundation, who are our partners in observing the hunt at the Front, are here to bear witness to this atrocity. Our team of observers are ready to go out and record the cruelty that the Canadian government and the sealers don't want anyone to see. Tomorrow will be tremendously difficult for all concerned, and I am heartbroken that our campaign has not yet been able to put a stop to this hunt.

But as I watch Vera Weber, the daughter of Franz and Judith Weber, setting off in a helicopter for the ice floes, I am reminded of the persistence and resilience of our movement.

It was Franz Weber who visited the ice floes in the Front in the 1970s—when it was still legal to kill seal pups less than 12 days old—proposing economic alternatives to the seal hunt for Newfoundland. Now, 30 years later, his daughter is here—ready and willing to take up the fight.

Today we have a new kind of sealing industry to deal with—one that is larger, wealthier, and more sophisticated than the one we took on in the 1980s. But we are far stronger too—and The HSUS and our partners around the world will keep campaigning until this cruel and needless slaughter ends for good.

Rebecca Aldworth is Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues for The HSUS.

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April 13, 2006. Mob Mentality: Sealers Lay Siege to the ProtectSeals Team

(photo: HSUS)

BLANC SABLON, QUEBEC—The violence on the ice during the final and largest stage of Canada's commercial seal hunt has spread to the nearby shore. Last night, the ProtectSeals team—including The Humane Society of the United States and its partner in observing this stage of the hunt, the Franz Weber Foundation—and an international group of journalists and observers were forced to flee the small town of Cartwright on Labrador's east coast because of threats from sealing supporters. Hostility continued today in Quebec as a mass of people besieged the hotel where the observers were staying.

Early on Wednesday, a mob of approximately 50 people blocked the observers—who were legally permitted to document the hunt—from boarding a chartered helicopter in order to film the first day of the hunt off the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland. HSUS Director for Canadian Wildlife Issues, Rebecca Aldworth, reports, "They sat on the floats of our helicopters. We couldn't leave because if we started up the helicopter, the blades could have hurt somebody." Finally, police dispersed the mob, and the observers were able to take off. A second group of observers were similarly confronted when attempting to take off, but they too managed finally to depart.

In explaining the incident to CBC News, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police—which is tasked with keeping the peace and enforcing the law during the seal hunt—said, "I think the people in Cartwright have some concerns…there's a lot of people from Cartwright that are out sealing right now."

Residents of the community admitted to hostility towards the observers. One woman complained to the CBC News that, "they say that what we're doing is a massacre and barbaric and everything else….But, I mean, this is something that's been taking place in Newfoundland and Labrador for years."

Different Town, Same Story

In efforts to continue their documentation of the seal hunt in peace, The ProtectSeals team left Labrador and relocated to the town of Blanc-Sablon in neighboring Quebec. But the threats and attempts at intimidation followed them.

This morning, a group of residents used a truck to force a van off the road and into a ditch. The van contained ProtectSeals team members and journalists on their way to film the hunt. "We wanted to try and stop them." Sealer Marius Lavalee acknowledged to the Canadian Press. Fortunately, no one in the van was injured, and the observers managed to return to the hotel.

When they arrived at the hotel, seal hunt supporters who were intent on preventing helicopters from leaving to observe the hunt surrounded the hotel in which the ProtectSeals team, along with the journalists and other observers traveling with them, had been staying. The two police officers sent to keep the peace did little to resolve the situation, said Aldworth. Only after HSUS officials called upon the U.S. State Department, the American Embassy, and local police to ensure the safety of the team and other observers did they escort the besieged observers to the airport at the end of the day.

What's driving the residents to employ intimidation tactics? They know that by allowing observers to document the hunt, the world will witness—for the first time in two decades—the massacre that neither the Canadian government nor the sealers want the rest of humanity to see. More than 230,000 baby seals will be killed in just a few days. Most of them will be shot, and if the hunt is anything like previous ones, an appalling number will be skinned alive. The waters of the Front are swarming with sealing vessels. They have combed the ice for the seals who managed to survive both disappearing ice, which meant the drowning death of untold numbers of baby seals, and the hunt's first phase in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which claimed the lives of more than 91,000 seals.

Aggression in the Gulf

In the Gulf portion of the hunt, sealers also used physical intimidation to try forcing the ProtectSeals team to stop documentation of the hunt. There, not content with flinging seal carcasses and verbally harassing observers, sealers repeatedly charged after observers’ small inflatable boats and even rammed one boat, forcing it up onto an ice pan. The Canadian authorities never responded to observers' radioed distress calls during that attack. On the second day of the Gulf hunt, five members of the ProtectSeals team, along with other legally permitted observers, were stripped of their observation permits after an apparent set-up leading to their arrest. The Department of Fisheries also confiscated the observers’ footage of the hunt at that time.

Aldworth points out that those who are trying to suppress observers aren't doing themselves any favors. "These people have convinced the journalists who are here that there is something so terrible happening out on the ice floes that they have to resort to violence to protect it." And in the end, the mob was unsuccessful: The seal team and observers were able to photograph and film the hunt, and The HSUS is in the process of making the footage available worldwide.

"We are appalled by these violent tactics used by the local citizens in an attempt to prevent our team from documenting the cruelty of the seal hunt," said HSUS Senior Vice President Dr. John Grandy. "Our team is there as peaceful observers who are committing no crimes. They should not have to fear for their safety. This is a terrible injustice, and Canada should be ashamed." He continued, "In the end, however, neither the sealers nor the Canadian government will be able to stop us from exposing to the world the true tragedy here: the cruel slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seals for their fur."

Rebecca Aldworth is Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues for The HSUS.

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May 15, 2006. The 2006 Canadian Seal Hunt: Violence, Betrayal...and Hope for the Road Ahead

(photo: HSUS)

By Rebecca Aldworth

Today is the regulated closing day of the 2006 commercial seal hunt in Canada.

I am relieved that the worst is over and the killing has almost ended. But I'm devastated to know that despite worldwide action to stop the hunt, more than 320,000 baby seals died horrible and needless deaths this year.

They are funny things, statistics. It's so easy to forget that every single one of those seal pups were once living beings—that for too short a time, they existed. They nursed from their mothers, they played, and they splashed in pools of water.

One evening in March, they slept innocently as the sun set on them.

The Growing Campaign

And in the cold first light of the next morning, the bloody hunt began. The bewildered pups were clubbed, and hooked, and dragged, and skinned—often while still alive. They were shot, and wounded, and left choking to death on their own blood. They were just days or weeks of age, and they were brutalized in unthinkable ways to feed the whims of the fashion industry.

I know this because I saw it. For the eighth year in a row, I was there, bearing witness.

Why?

In the wake of this hunt, so many people are asking, "Why?" Why was the outrage of the entire world not enough to convince Canada to join the 21st century and outlaw a brutal practice that should have been ended years ago? Why didn't the Canadian government stop the hunt when it became obvious how much of the ice had disappeared, in what is surely the worst natural disaster for the seals in half a century.

For me, the questions go on and on, because I am Canadian, and this year my government proved it would sink to any level—even breaking its own laws—to protect the sealing industry.

I knew it would be a difficult year to film the hunt. Over the past three years, the level of violence from sealers towards observers has steadily increased. And the unprecedented media attention sparked by Heather and Paul McCartney's visit—to the harp seal nursery was sure to sour sealers' moods.

But even I wasn't prepared for what happened.

Violence and Betrayal

As they always do, the sealers shouted insults and threats at our observation team, which included journalists from around the world. But the hostility turned to violence, as they repeatedly charged at our inflatable vessels. I remember the horrible bang as a sealing boat crashed into one of our vessels, the chaos that followed, and the panicked looks on the faces of the observers when it appeared that these sealers weren't just angry but seemingly meant to do us harm.

Later that day, two sealing boats chased our inflatables through the icy waters, trying to ram us. We maneuvered quickly out of the way, struggling not to get stuck in the ice. The sealers screamed obscenities at us and hurled seal carcasses. I remember the bewildered look on the face of the captain from our main vessel when he told us the nearby Coast Guard had ignored his repeated calls for assistance.

And I remember the disbelief I felt, after that long and dangerous day, when Coast Guard officers emerged from hiding on board a sealing vessel and arrested our group of observers instead of the sealers. Our alleged crime: drifting within ten meters of the sealing boat, a violation of our observation permits.

I remember the betrayal I felt when Department of Fisheries and Oceans officers, with whom I've worked for years, informed me they would deny me and my colleagues observation permits for the rest of the hunt.

Held Hostage

And it got worse. Just two weeks later, the violence spread to land as seal hunt supporters literally held our observation team hostage in two Canadian towns at the beginning of the final phase of the hunt. Our observation team included a number of international journalists and a Member of the European Parliament. The crowds were determined to keep us from getting to our helicopters so that we could film the hunt. A seal-hunt supporter in a large truck deliberately smashed into a van driving an international group of journalists, forcing it off the road and over a steep incline.

Still the Canadian government refused to intervene. Under pressure from the U.S. State Department, and the Swiss, British, and Swedish Embassies, the local police escorted us to the airport hours later. I've heard from many people who want to know how those of us who confronted the sealers are doing. I always respond, "We're alive."

I think that is my answer because so many of the seals are not. The fact is that we were the lucky ones. The seals faced a far greater violence than we ever did, and more than 320,000 of them didn't make it out alive.

That's why I am even more committed to making sure this year's was the last hunt we'll ever have to see—that the few pups who survived this year's brutality will never again be subjected to the cruelty of a commercial seal hunt.

And I have reason to hope.

Hope in a Growing Campaign

The sealing industry's anger directly reflects the success of our campaign. A look back over the past few months shows how far we've come. Heather and Paul McCartney exposed Canada's shameful secret to the world—letting people know the hunt is back, and it's bigger and crueler than ever. Italy banned its trade in all seal products, shutting the door to a large segment of the fashion industry. The Canadian seafood boycott gained the support of hundreds of businesses and hundreds of thousands of individuals. The ProtectSeals campaign has achieved incredible momentum worldwide, and I know we are winning.

While most of my memories of the hunt this year are bad ones, there was also one good moment: I was in a rigid inflatable, watching a seal pup as a sealing boat headed directly toward him. The sun was shining, and the pup—completely oblivious to the danger facing him—watched us serenely from his ice pan. We floated there on the ocean and, for a second, time stood still. But then the boat began to crash through the nearby ice pans. The pup looked around in panic and, as if sensing we were there to protect him, began to move towards our boat. I remember staring into the eyes of one of the sealers, as if by sheer force of will I could force him to stop. We all stayed completely still, our cameras rolling as we held our ground. And suddenly, the sealing vessel turned around. In the midst of all of the carnage, one seal was saved.

For that seal, and for all the others, we will continue this fight. And we will win. It is not a question of if, but when. The sealing industry knows it. The Canadian government knows it. And we know it. Please stand by us and win this victory for the seals forever.

Rebecca Aldworth is Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues for The HSUS.

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Rebecca Aldworth's journal, reprinted with kind permission from HSUS