It's happened again. In 2008, Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada gave hunters in the community of Pond Inlet, Nunavut, permission to slaughter 500 trapped narwhals, despite efforts by animal rights activists to provide an ice breaker to rescue them. In December 2015, 230 narwhals were killed in a near identical incident.
The whales were shot in near darkness, and the noise of rifles disturbed them.
Instead of issuing hunting permits, the DFO should develop a whale rescue program, and research why whales strand, to prevent a similar outcome.
Dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Minister Hunter Tootoo,
Please create a nation wide program to save injured, stranded, and orphaned marine mammals. The recent killing of 230 stranded narwhals in Pond Inlet was a tragedy that could have been avoided. Sending out an ice breaker to rescue the narwhals would have benefited both the animals, and the Inuit, who rely on them for food. Culls are not humane or sustainable, and are unanimously condemned by animal rights groups.
