Animal Educate: Seal Hunting

The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?" ~Jeremy Bentham

Seal hunting was my first introduction to animal cruelty, before that I have to admit I was unaware of the velocity of just how badly some of our animals are treated across the planet. Alot of us may only have seen seals in animal documentaries or had a little cute seal teddybear, but it's important that we know just how they are treated and how we can help. Their appearance is often compared to that of a small puppy, and you cant help but feel they radiate innocence and friendliness. The disturbing thing is that they are known for their intelligence, so they are well aware of what is happening to them, when the hunters come...

If I could speak to the seal hunters, I'd tell them the following: Please go home, spend time with your family, and look for another job. Be a man of integrity. What would you say???

“Our deeds still travel with us from afar/And what we have been makes us what we are.” ― George Eliot, Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life

Seal Facts

Seals don’t really have any defenses that can do much against predators. They can bite but that is no match for what wants them for lunch. You may view seals on the land and think they don’t have much room to call their own. Yet the stay extremely close to each other as this is their main source of protection. The often stay in groups that contain more than 1,000 seals in them.

Read more interesting facts here : http://www.seals-world.com/facts-about-seals.html

How friendly are Elephant seals?

Antarctic seals are generally completely unafraid of man despite the inglorious days of sealing when hundreds of thousands of them were killed fir their fur and/or blubber.These days the recommendation is to stay considerably further away than this, the small weaned pup in the foreground has just his very close-fitting personal space invaded and isn't that happy - he's not actually that bothered either to be honest. The larger and older seals nearby seem completely unflustered.The only time these seals get very upset is if you approach them walking upright. When they threaten each other, they rear upwards to get as much height as they can and so seem to assume that an upright figure is a threat. If you get down low as this guy has done, they are pretty much unfrazzled, though by that time you may be uncomfortably close to a ton or more of smelly, sharp-toothed, animated blubber.

http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/wildlife/southern_elephant_seals_crabeater.htm

Each year, the Canadian government gives hunters the green light to bludgeon to death hundreds of thousands of baby harp seals. During the slaughter, baby seals are shot or repeatedly clubbed. Sealers bludgeon the animals with clubs and "hakapiks" (metal-hook–tipped clubs) and drag the seals —who are often still conscious—across the ice floes with boat hooks.

Hunters toss dead and dying seals into heaps and leave their carcasses to rot on the ice floes because there is no market for seal meat. Veterinarians who have investigated the slaughter have found that hunters routinely fail to comply with Canada's animal welfare standards.

Baby seals are helpless and have no way to escape from the sealers' clubs. A Washington Post article on the seal slaughter described it this way: "[A] seal appearing to gasp for air, blood running from its nose as it lies on an ice floe. Not far away, a sealer sharpens his knife blade. The seal seems to be thrashing as its fur is sliced from its torso." Continue reading http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-clothing/canadian-seal-slaughter.aspx

Real Footage

http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/seal_hunt/