April 9: Fighting to Get to the Front

In the stormy waters northeast of Newfoundland, more than 230,000 seals will be killed for their skins—bringing the official harp seal death toll this year to 325,000.

At the Front, seal hunters will, for the most part, shoot at seal pups from moving boats. Many of their moving targets will not die quickly. Even the Canadian government admits at least 10,000 of the seals shot at this year will be wounded and escape beneath the water’s surface, where they will die slowly. Their bodies will not be recovered, and their deaths will not be counted in official kill statistics.

Many people mistakenly believe that shooting seal pups is more humane than clubbing them to death. But I know differently. I have watched footage of a seal struggling while sealers shot at her…for the eight long minutes it took her to die. As she thrashed around in the water, desperately trying to crawl back onto the ice, the bullets hit her, one after another. Blood poured into the water all around her. I’ll never forget her—and the many reasons why fishermen shooting seal pups at sea can never be called humane.

I hate to think of what will happen on the ice and in the waters of the Front this year—I know exactly how brutal the killing is in this region. I also know that it is standard for sealers to slaughter nearly 150,000 seals in this area in less than two days.

Unseen Slaughter

Preparing for this trip to the Front is doubly hard, knowing that another 70,000 seals have just been killed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence—most of them in less than 48 hours.

I am heartbroken that six other observers and I were arbitrarily prohibited by the Canadian government from documenting that part of the hunt. These seals died without witnesses, which is exactly how the sealing industry wants it.

It is clear to me now the lengths to which the Canadian government is prepared to go to cover up the cruelty of the commercial seal hunt. In refusing to issue permits for The Humane Society of the United States to observe at the Front, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Loyola Hearn, has violated Canada's Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of the press, and the Marine Mammal Regulations. According to The Marine Mammal Regulations, the only reason permits can be denied is if observers have been convicted of an offense related to their observation in the past five years. Not only were our observers not convicted, they have not even been charged.

Eyes to the Front

But the Canadian government will not be able to keep the rest of the world from seeing truth.

After learning our permits had been denied, and with only a short time left to observe the hunt, The HSUS joined with the Franz Weber Foundation to pull together a new team of observers to go to the Front, document the cruel slaughter, and expose it worldwide.

I don’t know what awaits The HSUS team in Newfoundland, but I will be there to coordinate our expedition. Even as I depart for Newfoundland for this heartbreaking purpose, I know that we are winning the larger battle of making this the last slaughter anyone will ever have to witness.

Canada, the whole world is watching. We are here, acting as its eyes.

Rebecca Aldworth is Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues for The HSUS.