How to Help | Resources | Spreading the Word | About the Seal Hunt | About Seals | News + Press | Politics + Propaganda | About Us

Harpseals.org is a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Charity Working to End the Slaughter of Harp Seals

Whitecoat harp seal pup. Photo by Olga Gershenzon

On Thursday, August 19th, 2010, the European Court of Justice ordered the EU's seal product import ban to be suspended. This ban passed in 2009. However, the EU has vowed to implement the ban anyway.

Read more here.

Inuit seal exporter Mary Simon, along with the Canadian Seal Marketing Group, the Fur Institute of Canada, Nu Tan Furs, the Norwegian company, G. C. Rieber and Sons, and others, sued in the EU Court, claiming that the EU violated its laws, regulations, and policies in passing the ban on seal imports into the EU. This ban excludes seal skins sold by Inuit, yet the Inuits who took this issue to court claim harm due to the decline in pelt prices that has resulted from the EU ban. Read news articles here. Read our take on the Inuit claims here. Take action today.

Canadian sealer striking seal pup. Photo by HSI, AFP, Getty

Over 67,000 seal pups were killed in the spring of 2010, and many were killed for nothing, their pelts being tossed back into the water.

The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), under the leadership of Fisheries Minister Gail Shea, continues to put Canadian tax money into trying to drum up markets for dead seals.

Activists in the U.S. continue to promote the Canadian seafood boycott and the Canadian tourism boycott. European activists have begun promoting these boycotts as well. All are welcome to use Harpseals.org's new Seal Activist Networking tool.

The Canadian government announced the 2010 quota in March: 388,200 seal pups. Killing that many seal pups this year would leave few survivors. This quota demonstrates how little regard the Canadian government has for protecting wildlife.

However, conditions this year will result in the killing of far fewer seals than this quota. This year, the depressed market for seal fur, a direct result of the campaign to end the seal 'hunt', and the terrible ice conditions will keep the sealers from reaching the high quota.

Whitecoat harp seal pup struggles to get back onto broken ice floe. Pups at this age do not yet know how to swim. Photo by Reuters. 2010

Harp seals give birth to their pups on solid sea ice. So, in 2007, when temperatures were so warm that little sea ice formed, and what did form was thin and unstable, many seal pups drowned before they were old enough to swim. In fact, most pups born in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence suffered this fate. This year appears to be even worse.

One of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Ocean (DFO) scientists has admitted that such ice conditions lasting for several years could put the species in jeopardy. We and other animal protection organizations urged the Canadian government to adhere to the Precautionary Approach to wildlife management (as they have stated they do), and permanently end the annual slaughter of seals.

Unfortunately, now the DFO responded by saying that "it's up to the sealers to determine if they want to go out [to kill seals] or not," and by increasing their kill quota. Please contact the Canadian government today to urge them to cancel the annual massacre of seal pups.

from the Chronicle Herald video thechronicleherald.ca

Fisheries Minister Pied

The Canadian government and Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans, led by Gail Shea, have been working hard to promote the bloodshed of seals. Traveling around the world on the Canadian taxpayers' dime, Fisheries Minister Gail Shea and company are trying to drum up interest in seal skins. (Read more here.)

In February, one seal activist gave Ms. Shea a piece of her mind.

Great News:

The first seal slaughter of 2010 was supposed to take the lives of over 2,000 grey seal pups on Hay Island in Nova Scotia, but the Canadian government and sealers could not line up a buyer. Consequently, that slaughter has been cancelled!

Protests Against the Seal Hunt

Each year, activists put pressure on the sealers and the fishing industry that supports the yearly massacre. Join or organize a protest or other event to spread the word in 2010, and help put an end to this atrocity forever.

In 2009...

Though sealers from the Magdalen Islands of Quebec killed over 19,000 seal pups in just 3 days, reaching their quota in the first phase of the seal 'hunt', the second phase of the seal hunt began more slowly in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence on April 10th. The sealers of Newfoundland and Labrador, who are fishermen most of the year, were hampered by some bad weather and discouraged by the low price offered for seal pelts - a direct result of the European Union's efforts at banning imports of all seal products. The passage of the EU ban resulted in the lowest number of seals killed since 1994.

The DFO's unrealized plans for 2009

The Canadian government set a quota on killing harp seals of about 280,000 animals in 2009, with 70% of the quota of seals to be killed in the second phase of the seal 'hunt' on 'The Front' (waters east of Newfoundland and Labrador and also in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence). The first phase of the seal hunt took place in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The slaughter of harp seals is in addition to a quota of 8,200 hooded seals and 50,000 grey seals, also pups. In February, hundreds of grey seal pups were killed in Cape Breton when a buyer was found for their fur.

These figures do not include seals who are 'struck and lost' (i.e., injured by sealers, but escape, probably dying in the ocean).

Read more about how the seal hunt happens and why here. Read news about the seal hunt here.

A Brief Background on Canada's Seal Hunt

Each year, in the harp seal slaughter, a few thousand Canadian fishermen bludgeon and shoot two-week to two-month-old seals, hook and drag them and skin many of these pups while they are still alive and conscious. They then sell the skins to European and Asian furriers. The bodies of these seals are left to rot.

In this competitive commercial slaughter, each sealer charges across the ice floes in an effort to kill as many seal pups as he can before someone else gets the pups. In 2008, sealers on longliners on the Front (the second phase of the seal hunt, off the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador) killed their quota of seals in just two days.

This atmosphere discourages adherence to rules and regulations, such as checking for blinking eyes before skinning the seal pups. Observers of the hunt have documented hundreds of violations of these regulations, but the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), which regulates the seal hunt, has rarely levied any charges against the perpetrators.

Canadian sealer clubbing seals. (c) HSUS / Brian Skerry

In 2008, four sealers were killed and four sealing vessels were destroyed in the treacherous icy waters. The Canadian Coast Guard rescued several sealers (at Canadian taxpayers' expense), but some sealers died in the attempted rescue. Read the news reports about the 2008 slaughter here.

The slaughter of seals in Canada has taken place for hundreds of years. Today, this annual ritual offers so little economic value to the sealers, and even to the sealing boat captains (whose take is usually 50%), that many stayed home in 2008.

To learn more about the history of sealing in Canada and the modern seal hunt, visit our About the Hunt section.

Lone harp seal pup among dozens of harp seal carcasses left behind by sealers. (c) SF Bay / Indymedia

One person who has observed the slaughter of seal pups for many years and who was born and raised in the sealing province of Newfoundland and Labrador is Rebecca Aldworth. In her journal, she described what she saw on the ice floes:

"As we passed one large red vessel, we saw sealers jump off the side onto the ice. They ran towards a single live seal pup, hakapiks in hand.

The pup, sensing danger, tried desperately to crawl towards the edge of the water. But the two men bearing down on her were faster. One sealer struck her on the side, then twice again on the head. He grabbed her hind flippers and pulled her back across the ice, stopping to club her twice more. He grabbed her front flipper and turned her over.

But then the second sealer kicked the wounded pup with his boot. Seeing a reaction, he motioned to the first sealer, who clubbed her four more times on the head.

Not to be outdone, the second sealer grabbed his hakapik and clubbed the baby seal once more. He flipped her over and began to cut her open -- only to roll her back over so the first sealer could club her three more times. This poor baby seal was clubbed thirteen times in total."

Read the 2009 journal entries of Rebecca Aldworth here.

Snow crabs from Canada are being boycotted.

How Harpseals.org Works for Seals

Harpseals.org provides extensive information on all aspects of the seal hunt, so that individuals can understand what takes place, when the seal hunt occurs, how the sealers kill the seals, where the killing occurs, who the sealers are, and why the killing continues.

Explore the site through the links on the left and top of this page.

We also work tirelessly to end the slaughter and provide information and assistance to seal activists all over the world. Our primary strategy to end the annual Canadian seal hunt is the Canadian seafood boycott. This boycott puts pressure on the sealers themselves and the industry behind the slaughter.

We invite you to use our website to learn about the seal hunt, and we hope you will join us in working to end it.