CHARLOTTETOWN, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, March 26—The seal hunt is starting soon.

More than ten sealing boats have left the Magdalen Islands, and another ten are scheduled to go today. We have reports that at least 27 are on their way from Newfoundland.

They will be in the midst of the seal nursery within hours.

I can feel the tension levels rising in our HSUS Seal Watch group—I've witnessed the seal hunt firsthand, and we've all seen the video footage. And we know exactly what is coming.

It's impossible to think that in just four days, sealers will club and shoot to death these seal pups we have spent so many life-changing hours with over the past week.

I remember thinking the same thing last year, when the seal hunt started on March 24. There were still so many tiny whitecoat pups on the ice floes, some still nursing from their mothers. But the sealers came anyway, as they always do. I shudder to think about the fate that awaits the baby seals I have befriended over the past few days.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what it will take to end this hunt. I believe a big part of it will be changing the perception on Canada's East Coast of seals as an "exploitable resource" to the magnificent wildlife spectacle they are.

As hundreds of sealers continue to leave Canada's shores to butcher seal pups, there are moments it seems impossible we will ever achieve this.

But then I think of whale hunting.

Because less than four decades ago, Newfoundlanders slaughtered thousands of whales for their oil and meat. And today a thriving ecotourism industry has replaced commercial whaling. You could not find a person in Newfoundland today who would advocate a return to the whale slaughter.

This transition did not come easily, and it did not come overnight. But it happened. And I know the same can happen for seals. Because the parallels between the two industries are too clear to miss.

First, there is the Norway connection.

Interestingly, the company that now buys the majority of sealskins in Canada each year is located in an old Newfoundland whaling plant. And that company, named Carino, is a subsidiary of a Norwegian firm called Rieber. In any given year, most of the sealskins are bought from sealers by Carino and shipped in an unprocessed state directly to Norway for tanning and resale to the world's fashion market.

This means that today, Norway is the economic backbone of Canada's commercial seal hunt.

And just like the seal hunt, commercial whaling in Newfoundland was also directly linked to Norway. Throughout the modern era of commercial whaling, joint venture Newfoundland-Norway companies led the whale hunts off Canada's east coast, and Norway remained closely tied to the industry until its demise in 1972. (Unlike Newfoundland, Norway never gave up its whaling industry and continues to whale commercially despite the International Whaling Commission's 1986 ban.)

And there is another disturbing connection between whaling and sealing: the fur industry. It's a connection the industries don't like to talk about.

Back in the 1950s, the development of factory fur farms on Canada's East Coast dramatically increased the number of whales slaughtered—the whale meat was used to feed the minks and foxes raised on those farms. It is interesting that the Carino sealing plant was almost exclusively used back then to process pothead and minke whale meat for fur factories. So many whales were slaughtered for this purpose in Newfoundland that the populations began to dwindle, and by the 1960s, local fur factory farmers had to import whale meat.

And just a few years ago, when it became clear seal meat could never be marketed successfully for human consumption, the sealing industry began to sell it to local fur farms. Although almost all the carcasses are left to rot on the ice today, a very small amount of seal meat is still sold to factory fur farms.

So when I feel most despairing about the future of seals, I remember that whale watching in Newfoundland today is worth more than the seal hunt has ever brought in.

In 1972 the Canadian government gave in to public pressure, and imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling—instituting a compensation package for those affected. As the global community banned the commercial hunting of whales, the world began to show interest in a new relationship with the whales—ecotourism. It didn't take long for Newfoundland to see that the whales were worth more alive than dead.

Today tourists would never think that Newfoundlanders once slaughtered the same whales they now revere.

Norway lost the battle to continue the slaughter of whales in Canada. As it will lose the battle to slaughter seals.

The HSUS Protect Seals campaign will ensure it.