March 23, 2006

By Rebecca Aldworth

CHARLOTTETOWN, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND—Today freezing rain made it frustratingly impossible for our helicopters to fly over the Gulf of St. Lawrence to look for the harp seal pups who will be the target of Canada’s commercial seal hunt.

You see, the weather doesn’t stop the sealers—their vessels are already on the move. Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has announced that the seal hunt will begin at 6 a.m. this Saturday. The sealing boats are already leaving their ports, converging on the few seal pups who cling to ice pans barely large enough to support them as they still struggle to learn how to swim.

The callous disregard these sealers show for the natural world around them amazes me. That these seals must endure their icy habitat literally disappearing in the wake of unseasonably warm temperatures is bad enough. Worse still is that so many of the pups born this year have most likely drowned because the ice melted beneath them before they were old enough to swim proficiently. But it is unthinkable that in the next few days, sealers will club or shoot to death the few surviving pups for their fur.

The vanishing ice and seals forced the DFO to relocate the hunt far to the east, near Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, where it was reported there were still pockets of seals left alive.

Yesterday I heard the sealers gloat to the media that the treacherous ice conditions would make it impossible for The HSUS ProtectSeals team to land helicopters on the ice and document the hunt this year. Hearing that, I renewed my pledge to myself that wherever the sealing boats traveled, we would be there to document the killing.

Today we secured a boat that's able to take us directly into the sealing areas and found helicopter pilots brave enough to attempt the flight to the ice. Even if it isn't safe for them to land, they will fly low enough for us to film the hunters as they conduct their cruel business. The hunters will not escape our cameras.

None of us can believe that we will soon witness another seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It's something we are all trying not to think about as we prep to leave for the hunt area. But being there and recording what happens is the only way we can end this hunt for good. Whatever it takes, we must be there to film and document this slaughter. And I know that the talented, dedicated ProtectSeals team, working with the support of so many others from around the world, will do everything in their power to ensure it is the last one any of us will ever have to witness.