Seal Hunt Has Started Again

The seal hunt for 2012 has started; Rebecca Aldworth of the Humane Society of the United States has been out on the ice floes, and has witnessed the slaughter of seals of all ages, including baby seals. This disproves the spurious claims of the DFO, Canadian government and the sealers that the hunt is responsible, supervised and humane. It also shows that with the reduced seal populations and indiscriminate slaughter, the long-term survival of the harp seal must now be in doubt.
The Canadian government is still considering a huge slaughter of grey seals, as well as the annual slaughter of harp seals. Sales of seal penises would provide a financial validation of seal slaughters that are otherwise a total waste.
As well, Canadian fisheries minister Keith Ashfield has set the 2012 harp seal quota at 400,000 seals, a ridiculous figure widely decried by scientists that can't be met, after years of consistent decline in harp seal populations. This irresponsible quota is merely a political posture to appear to support sealers, instead of the only responsible policy of a sealing industry buy-out.
While the Chinese market is likely to fall flat again in 2012, it still provides the Canadian government another excuse to slaughter huge numbers of seals, at increasingly large deficits (the annual harp slaughter costs $7 million, but last year only brought in $1 million). Please sign this petition and make the Canadian government retire the seal hunt for good.