Words almost fail me right now. What the ProtectSeals team witnessed at the seal hunt yesterday was more than we could bear. So many baby seals, just a few weeks of age and only beginning to moult their white coats, were shot and wounded and left to suffer in agony.
April
10, 2007/© The HSUS
One seal tried desperately to crawl away, leaving a sickening trail of blood behind her on the ice (watch our video footage). For agonizing moments, we watched from our helicopter as she slowly dragged herself toward the water. Finally, the sealers reached the still-struggling pup. Without missing a beat, they impaled her on a steel hook, dragged her across the ice, and pulled her up onto their boat. A sealer threw her body onto a pile of about 50 dead and dying seals, then casually reached for a club and smashed her skull.
Another seal pup that had been shot but not killed was hooked and dragged across the ice while still conscious. The pup was tossed callously onto a pile of dead seals in a boat. Moments later, we saw the seal pup moving amidst the carcasses.
April
10, 2007/© The HSUS
One wounded seal struggled as she was stabbed with a boat hook. Seeing that she was still alive, the sealer stopped and clubbed her ineffectively with a wooden pole - an illegal weapon.
Yet another seal was shot and injured but, as blood poured from him, managed to make it to the edge of the ice, where he disappeared into the water. Though a part of me cheered inside when he evaded the hunters, I know all too well that he will almost surely bleed to death slowly - just one of the countless thousands of wounded seals who endure this fate each year.
There were almost no instances where the sealers obeyed the Marine Mammal Regulations, which require them to check to see if the seals are dead before hooking, dragging and skinning the animals. Nearly all of the seals we observed showed responses to pain as the sealers stabbed their steel hooks through the jaws, skulls and flippers of the pups, and dragged the animals across the ice.
These were the Newfoundland seal hunters, who claim their methods of hunting are far more humane than those used by Magdalen Islanders (map). But this is a lie. While I have seen a lot of brutal killing throughout my nine years of monitoring this hunt, yesterday's images were among the worst I can remember. The sealers knew they were being filmed, but didn't even attempt to obey regulations. And, as usual, there were no government enforcement officers in sight.
April
10, 2007/© The HSUS
We are all in shock right now, trying very hard to deal with the savagery we witnessed. After all, this is a hunt that my government has the gall to describe as "98 percent humane."
It is said that you cannot wake a man who is only pretending to be asleep, and I can't think of a more fitting statement for the government representatives who continue to defend this slaughter. Every year that we film these gruesome images, we provide our footage to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. They see the same thing we do. Still, they choose to promote this brutality and then attempt to cover it up by blocking legal observation.
The Canadian government is about to fail - and fail badly - in its mission to defend the indefensible. As angry and horrified as I am right now, I know that the scenes we witnessed and filmed today are irrefutable proof that Canada's commercial seal hunt is inherently inhumane.
Today we will return to the scene of these crimes, to gather more evidence that will help shut down this brutality forever.
Rebecca Aldworth, The HSUS director of Canadian Wildlife Issues, grew up in Newfoundland and has been a longtime observer of the Canadian seal hunt. Follow along as she documents her ninth trip to the ice and faces the cruelty firsthand.
