BLANC SABLON, QUEBEC—The violence on the ice during the final and largest stage of Canada's commercial seal hunt has spread to the nearby shore. Last night, the ProtectSeals team—including The Humane Society of the United States and its partner in observing this stage of the hunt, the Franz Weber Foundation—and an international group of journalists and observers were forced to flee the small town of Cartwright on Labrador's east coast because of threats from sealing supporters. Hostility continued today in Quebec as a mass of people besieged the hotel where the observers were staying. 

Early on Wednesday, a mob of approximately 50 people blocked the observers—who were legally permitted to document the hunt—from boarding a chartered helicopter in order to film the first day of the hunt off the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland. HSUS Director for Canadian Wildlife Issues, Rebecca Aldworth, reports, "They sat on the floats of our helicopters. We couldn't leave because if we started up the helicopter, the blades could have hurt somebody." Finally, police dispersed the mob, and the observers were able to take off. A second group of observers were similarly confronted when attempting to take off, but they too managed finally to depart.

In explaining the incident to CBC News, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police—which is tasked with keeping the peace and enforcing the law during the seal hunt—said, "I think the people in Cartwright have some concerns…there's a lot of people from Cartwright that are out sealing right now."

Residents of the community admitted to hostility towards the observers. One woman complained to the CBC News that, "they say that what we're doing is a massacre and barbaric and everything else….But, I mean, this is something that's been taking place in Newfoundland and Labrador for years."

Different Town, Same Story

In efforts to continue their documentation of the seal hunt in peace, The ProtectSeals team left Labrador and relocated to the town of Blanc-Sablon in neighboring Quebec. But the threats and attempts at intimidation followed them.

This morning, a group of residents used a truck to force a van off the road and into a ditch. The van contained ProtectSeals team members and journalists on their way to film the hunt. "We wanted to try and stop them." Sealer Marius Lavalee acknowledged to the Canadian Press. Fortunately, no one in the van was injured, and the observers managed to return to the hotel.

When they arrived at the hotel, seal hunt supporters who were intent on preventing helicopters from leaving to observe the hunt surrounded the hotel in which the ProtectSeals team, along with the journalists and other observers traveling with them, had been staying. The two police officers sent to keep the peace did little to resolve the situation, said Aldworth. Only after HSUS officials called upon the U.S. State Department, the American Embassy, and local police to ensure the safety of the team and other observers did they escort the besieged observers to the airport at the end of the day. 

What's driving the residents to employ intimidation tactics? They know that by allowing observers to document the hunt, the world will witness—for the first time in two decades—the massacre that neither the Canadian government nor the sealers want the rest of humanity to see. More than 230,000 baby seals will be killed in just a few days. Most of them will be shot, and if the hunt is anything like previous ones, an appalling number will be skinned alive. The waters of the Front are swarming with sealing vessels. They have combed the ice for the seals who managed to survive both disappearing ice, which meant the drowning death of untold numbers of baby seals, and the hunt's first phase in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which claimed the lives of more than 91,000 seals.

Aggression in the Gulf

In the Gulf portion of the hunt, sealers also used physical intimidation to try forcing the ProtectSeals team to stop documentation of the hunt. There, not content with flinging seal carcasses and verbally harassing observers, sealers repeatedly charged after observers’ small inflatable boats and even rammed one boat, forcing it up onto an ice pan. The Canadian authorities never responded to observers' radioed distress calls during that attack. On the second day of the Gulf hunt, five members of the ProtectSeals team, along with other legally permitted observers, were stripped of their observation permits after an apparent set-up leading to their arrest. The Department of Fisheries also confiscated the observers’ footage of the hunt at that time.

Aldworth points out that those who are trying to suppress observers aren't doing themselves any favors. "These people have convinced the journalists who are here that there is something so terrible happening out on the ice floes that they have to resort to violence to protect it." And in the end, the mob was unsuccessful: The seal team and observers were able to photograph and film the hunt, and The HSUS is in the process of making the footage available worldwide. 

"We are appalled by these violent tactics used by the local citizens in an attempt to prevent our team from documenting the cruelty of the seal hunt," said HSUS Senior Vice President Dr. John Grandy. "Our team is there as peaceful observers who are committing no crimes. They should not have to fear for their safety. This is a terrible injustice, and Canada should be ashamed." He continued, "In the end, however, neither the sealers nor the Canadian government will be able to stop us from exposing to the world the true tragedy here: the cruel slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seals for their fur."