Friends of Animals Calls for a Town Meeting and an End to Both
Victoria-The killing season is about to begin: 275,000 harp and hooded seal pups are set to be shot or bludgeoned to death off Newfoundland’s northeast coast in Canada. Whether one is the killer or the one being killed, it’s a brutal and degrading way of life for everyone involved-and Friends of Animals thinks it’s time for this tragic, senseless practice to end.
Priscilla Feral, President of Friends of Animals, says, “A privileged nation and global power like Canada should take socially responsible action to provide alternative livelihoods to Newfoundlanders and others in economically depressed areas.”
While Canada’s government claims killing seals is both economically necessary and humane, Canada’s economy should not depend on the mass slaughter of seals or any other animal. Reducing living beings to pelts and faddish health supplements is unnecessary, irrational and vicious.; Despite claims to the contrary, there is no ecological reason to kill seals, either; they are killed for the quintessential human vanity: seal fur.
Friends of Animals is now proposing a town meeting in St. John’s, Newfoundland to bring two critical issues to the table: the lives of seals and the lives of Canadians who profit from their mass slaughter. Friends of Animals endeavors to find a solution that supports the lives of both. Justice occurs when humans repudiate violence against all animals, human and non-humans alike.
The Canadian government subsidizes the mass slaughter, which directly supports the fur industry. Friends of Animals says it’s time for the subsidies and the fur industry to end.
Feral states, “Seals are not commodities. They’re more than fur, more than oil. They are living, feeling ocean mammals, entitled to their freedom. The seal hunt must end and Canada’s government must assist employees of the seal kill in providing unemployment benefits until other work can be developed.”
Climate change, a proposed ban on all seal products by the European Union and a diminishing fur industry are all making seal killing less profitable. Seals, however, should not have to wait for the seal market to collapse before we stop killing them. The slaughter needs to end now.