Sunday, April 5, 2009

Senators Stand Up for Seals

American lawmakers to consider condemning Canada's seal hunt

Two United States senators have a taken a bold step to condemn the brutal seal hunt in Canada, which has allowed the killing of 280,000 harp seals in 2009 for their pelts, blubber and meat.

Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat from Michigan, and Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, have introduced Senate Resolution 84, a Canadian seal hunt resolution that would urge the Canadian government to end the seal hunt, the largest annual slaughter of marine mammals in the world. It would also support "an unconditional prohibition by the European Union on trade in seal products."

The resolution states that "the few thousand fishermen who participate in the commercial seal hunt in Canada earn, on average, only a tiny fraction of their annual income from killing seals," adding that "polling consistently shows that the overwhelming majority of people in Canada oppose the commercial seal hunt."

In Canada, a lone senator -- Mac Harb -- attempted to introduce a similar bill, but remarkably it did not receive a second from any other senator. As a result, it did not even get a second reading.

Perhaps a nudge from its neighbors to the south will help Canada finally put an end to a barbaric and unnecessary practice that Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin recently said "should have been banned a long time ago."

GET INVOLVED
  • Sign a Humane Society of the United States letter urging your Senator to co-sponsor Resolution 84 (U.S. citizens only)
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image: a rescued harp seal pup, 2004
image credit: yeimaya
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