By Rebecca Aldworth

Last night I lay awake for several hours. Yesterday afternoon, I had received bad news: The second phase of Canada's annual seal hunt would begin at 6 this morning.

The Front phase of the hunt (off the north and east coasts of Newfoundland) was supposed to open on Tuesday, April 12. But gale-force winds and heavy ice forced hundreds of the sealing boats to seek shelter in a Newfoundland port. Out of concern for human safety, the Canadian government delayed the hunt.

For a few desperately hopeful days, there seemed to be a chance the seal pups would be spared this year. But luck was not on our side. The winds began to lift, and the sealing boats started to make their way back out to the ice floes.

As the minutes ticked by last night, I thought of all of us waiting: The baby seals, so defenseless on their ice pans, tired from being tossed around in the rough ocean. The sealing boats, already in position in the middle of the nursery, rolling on angry seas. And those of us trying to stop this slaughter, helpless to intervene.

The sun was brilliant in Montreal this morning, the air cruelly still. But I kidded myself that the winds might still continue off the coast of Newfoundland.

It was not to be. The first media report at 6:55 am confirmed—the hunt had opened.

An Incomprehensible Scale of Killing

In the end, these baby seals have no chance. Winds have pushed the ice floes up against the shores of Newfoundland. Normally up to 150 miles out to sea at this time of year, these seal pups are now within easy reach of the boats.

The slaughter will happen quickly: In each of the past two years, more than 140,000 seals have been killed over just two days during this part of the hunt. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is saying it will close the hunt tonight to see if the quota has been reached. They think the entire larger-vessel quota of 127,747 seals could be reached during the course of today's 12 hours of daylight.

This scale of killing is something few can comprehend. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, sealers killed 105,000 seals in about five days. From the air, the blood could be seen in all directions—literally small lakes of it washing over the wet ice.

In the Front, if the larger-vessel quota is taken by tonight, the killing will have taken place almost seven times as quickly.

Punished for the Sin of Beauty

I know what is happening out there. I have seen for myself how the sealers in Newfoundland operate. Standing at the front of the boat, sealers with guns will shoot at the pups lying exposed on small pans of ice. The lucky ones will die immediately, their skulls blown open by a bullet. Too often the baby seals will be wounded but will slip beneath the water's surface to bleed to death slowly. They will not be counted in the official kill statistics. And their bodies will never be recovered.

The wounded ones who don't disappear into the water will endure a far worse fate. Norwegian-owned Carino, the main sealskin purchaser in Newfoundland, takes off $2 for each bullet hole found on skins. So sealers are loath to shoot the pups more than once. Instead, they will pull their boats up close to the bloody ice pan and drag the still-thrashing animal onto the deck with a boathook and club the seal to death there.

My heart breaks as I think of these gentle creatures being shot and clubbed to death—paying the ultimate price for the crime of bearing beautiful fur. They are slaughtered relentlessly for nothing more than to provide fashions for a European shop.

There are times when the needlessness of this hunt devastates me. But I find comfort now in knowing that the world is watching. Canada can no longer hide this dirty secret behind a veil of lies and secrecy. As my heart aches for the helpless babies lost forever to greed and corruption, I look to the future.

The Canadian seafood boycott will change everything. As hundreds of thousands of individuals and companies take the pledge not to buy Canadian seafood until this cruel slaughter is ended for good, Canadian fishermen are taking notice. Where nothing else has convinced them to stop killing seals, this economic pressure will make the difference.

This is what I hold on to as the kill reports start to come in.

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