By Tanya Mulford
The three men look quite put out as they stand in a group on the steps alongside the large, modern, very civilized-looking Canadian Embassy on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. They're not angry, exactly, just irritated. That means that at least some of the protesters have arrived, I think.
In five minutes, the rally against the Canadian seal hunt is scheduled to start on the sidewalk in front of the embassy, and as I come up alongside the building, it at first looks disappointingly as if there are more security, diplomatic employees, secret service agents, and park police than protesters standing in the humid haze on this early November morning. But then I round the corner.
That's when I see about 40 people already gathered from local animal groups. They're holding signs, putting on anti-seal-hunt T-shirts, and handing out pamphlets and postcards (to be delivered to Canada's Ambassador to the United States, Michael Kergin) to the trickle of people hitting the sidewalk on their way to lunch. (Incidentally, Dr. John Grandy, The HSUS's senior vice president for Wildlife Programs, delivered a letter that morning to the ambassador outlining exactly our concerns in case he or any embassy staff member wished to respond.)
Andrea Cimino, the organizer of the campaign, is stepping into a seal costume, courtesy of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). I see a man with a camera and a woman with a large microphone. "They're from Canadian broadcasting," someone tells me. "The Canadians are really touchy about U.S. criticism of the seal hunt."
Then the megaphones come out. Two activists, one from The HSUS and one from the Fund for Animals, are leading the growing group in chants: "Canada's seal hunt—Canada's shame," they start.
The protesters stand at the curb and wave their signs at the passing cars, some of which honk in response. People walking by stop to sign the postcards. Generally, they take a brochure or two. One activist tells me, "A lot of people are asking to take the postcards with them, and they want to read more. It's like the whole hunt is news to them."
Tucked under a tree to the side of the embassy, a television screen plays footage of seals, still conscious, being dragged by sealers on hooks across the ice. The filming took place during last year's hunt, a hunt that the Canadian government swears was performed humanely according to official regulations.
A middle-aged woman asks me for a T-shirt and a few brochures. "I want to tell my friends about this. They just don't know this still goes on. We all thought it was over," she says and moves a few steps on to watch the protesters—now about 60 strong—chant.
I can still see the men on the steps of the embassy (they won't move once throughout the rally, as it turns out), but I see only one person walk out the door. She's a media relations staff member, Erica Fensom, who discusses the possibility that someone from the embassy might respond to our concerns. "We would welcome that," Grandy tells her.
Law and Disorder
An officer of the U.S. Park Police is telling Grandy the permit for the seal rally is no good. Both men are smiling for the Canadian journalists' camera. Apparently the District of Columbia had no business signing off on a permit for the rally.
"They can tell you it's all right to hold your rally in the street, but not on this property here," says the officer, nodding his head in the general direction of the sidewalk, a small park, and the embassy.
"And what do I need to do?" asks Grandy.
"Go home, apply for a permit from the Park Service, and when it's approved, come back."
"Well, we will do that next time," nods Grandy, "but since we're already here..." He smiles again.
"And you're not leaving today, are you?" the Park Police officer asks before heading back to his car, which is parked near a couple of other U.S. Park Police cars and a few motorcycles. Most of the officers, including some embassy security men, are wearing sunglasses and looking a little annoyed. Every once in a while, a pair of the motorcycles will rev up, rumble loudly along the road, then come back to roost. They seem to be making a point.
A Voice from the Front Lines
Grandy then introduces the speakers and tells the crowd that we have to cut the rally short as we've been asked to leave. Rebecca Aldworth, who has been with IFAW and fighting the seal hunt for years, talks first. (Read her full statement.)
"I'm originally from Newfoundland, which is where 95% of the seal hunt happens each year. I grew up in a small fishing community, and my family knew sealers. I had even eaten seal meat when I was very young&But one day, I saw a TV broadcast of footage from the seal hunt. It was the first time I had ever seen a live seal, let alone one being one killed."
She looks back at the embassy. "Of course, the people inside that embassy will try to tell you that the seal hunt is completely different nowadays," she says. "They'll say that today, it's a hunt for adults [adult seals].
"Funny, because each and every year, for the past five years, I have watched sealers killing those 'adults.' Adults who have not yet eaten their first solid food. Adults who are desperate to escape from the hunters but have to stop at the water's edge because they haven't yet learned how to swim."
Aldworth continues: "The people inside that embassy will also try to tell you that this hunt is humane. Interesting how some people define 'humane.' I went to a sealing conference last November in Newfoundland&and I read them testimony from sealers, taken by enforcement officers. Testimony about&how the sealers from those boats killed pregnant mothers that were about to give birth. And how those sealers ripped the living fetuses out of the dead bodies of the mother seals, and threw them into the ocean. And stood by and watched as the pups struggled to climb up onto the ice.
"What they tried to say then, and what they will try to say now, is that there is always a bad element in any industry—the 2% who will break the law. Well, after five years of bearing witness to this brutal hunt, I can tell you that it must be a pretty active 2%. Because they're everywhere. In every direction I look, in every direction we film. Every single year I see them stabbing sharpened boat hooks through conscious animals and dragging them across the ice. I see them shooting seals and leaving them to writhe around in agony until they get around to finishing them off. And I see them skinning seals alive."
We are such a respectful distance from the front door—from the front steps—of the embassy that I doubt anyone inside can hear the speech. There certainly isn't any response on the faces of the security guards, but what are they supposed to do?
Aldworth continues: "Many of you are probably wondering how Canadians can support this kind of cruelty and waste. Certainly, the people inside that embassy will try to tell you that they represent Canadians on this issue. Well, they don't. Because the solid majority of Canadians are opposed to this slaughter, and 85% believe that seals under a year of age should be protected from any hunting at all. Canadians have held rallies, have called their members of Parliament, have signed petitions, have sent letters. But our government refuses to listen."
Aldworth puts the final exclamation on her stirring speech: "Well, I'm here today to say no. No to this brutal, outdated slaughter. No to misinformation from the Canadian government. No to my tax dollars paying for something the majority of my country is dead set against. And no to my elected officials putting in overtime to act as spokespeople for this horrible industry."
A Hard Act to Follow
The HSUS's marine mammal scientist, Dr. Naomi Rose, is next, and I'm thinking she's got a hard act to follow. But Rose approaches the matter from an altogether different perspective. (Read her full statement.) She talks science, the fact that science should be the primary dictate for wildlife management, not politics. It's too bad that the Canadian newscasters have already left.
"There is no defensible economic, biological, or resource management justification for killing hundreds of thousands of these seals each year," Rose declares.
The scientist agrees with Aldworth that the Canadian government has been spreading lies about the effects of seals on the mismanaged cod fisheries. "Seals—probably in greater numbers than they exist today—and cod co-existed for millennia before people with their factory fishing vessels appeared on the scene," Rose says. "Plain and simple, it is human over-fishing that caused the crash of North Atlantic cod. Even scientists with Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans acknowledge this fact."
Glancing back to the still-unresponsive embassy, Rose tells the crowd, "The Canadian seal hunt is the largest commercial slaughter of wildlife in the world. This is hardly an achievement Canada should want to be known for. It is a hunt whose quotas are not supported by science—placing the Canadian management agencies at the trailing edge of resource management practices&"
Rose, like Aldworth before her, sounds the call for the Canadian government to truly assist the people it claims to be helping by allowing, even promoting, the hunt. "The government should focus its energies and funding on diversifying the economy of Atlantic Canada—people would spend far more money to travel to Newfoundland to view live seals breeding on the ice than they would pay for seal jerky."
After she's finished, Rose asks me if I've heard anything about an embassy representative coming out to address the crowd. Haven't heard a thing, I tell her. Then we begin speculating: Perhaps the embassy staff is tired of foreign criticism of the seal hunt. Rose points out that, the day before, British Foreign Office Minister Mike O'Brian told the press that his government was pressuring Canada to ban commercial seal hunting.
I later read a quote from O'Brian: "The way in which seal hunting and seal clubbing goes about does Canada's reputation a lot of damage." Another member of Parliament, David Amess, is quoted as saying: "There is no way we have been convinced that the action of killing these baby seals is anything other than cruel&I think that the Canadian government has effectively declared war on seals."
The Art of the Matter
The rally winding down, The HSUS's Grandy walks up to one of the Secret Service agents. "We weren't that bad, were we?"
The agent steps back and says, "You were fine. You can come back any day."
As we start to pack up our brochures, a pair of teenagers slides up. One asks, "Can we take some of these brochures back to our high school?"
The other chimes in: "Yeah, because they have no idea about this kind of stuff. They just don't hear about it." They take a stack away with them.
I walk across the street to the National Gallery of Art. A woman at the counter looks at my T-shirt.
"You from that protest over at the embassy?" Yes, I answer.
"It was about the seal hunt, wasn't it? I knew it! I told them"—she looks over at people behind other counters—"that's what it was. They're killing those baby seals, aren't they?"
She walks around the counter. "I love watching them on TV, love them. And then what we do to them—clubbing them for their fur. It's no wonder nature is out to get us these days. After what we do, I mean, what do you expect?"
Tanya Mulford is the web editor for wildlife and habitat protection.
