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| HSUS |
| Melting ice threatens the survival of baby seals.
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Scientists have long warned that the number of seals killed during Canada's annual hunt threatens the seal populations. But in recent years, it has become clear that these marine mammals now face an added threat to their survival—global warming.
Harp and hooded seals rely on the presence of sea ice, on which they give birth to and nurse their pups. But over the past decade, global warming has caused a steady decline in the sea ice cover off Canada's east coast—the very habitat of the harp and hooded seals.
When sea ice does not form properly, mother seals often abort in the water. If the ice forms but breaks up before the pups are strong enough to swim, thousands of the pups die in the water. In 2002, a particularly bad ice year, the Canadian government estimated that 75 percent of the pups born in the Gulf of St. Lawrence died when the ice melted too soon. This year's ice conditions appear to be worse than those of 2002.
Sadly, even as the habitat of these ice breeding seals disappears, the Canadian government is setting the highest quotas for harp seals in history. The Canadian government's own scientists have recently warned that the quota must be dramatically lowered, partly because of the impacts of climate change.
The commercial seal hunt is expected to start in a couple of weeks, and the government will announce the quota soon. Canada's Minister of Fisheries and Oceans should act now to protect seals and put an end to Canada's commercial seal hunt for once and all.
With more than one million seals killed in the past three years, the Canadian commercial seal hunt is by far the largest slaughter of marine mammals on Earth.
