AR-News: (CA) Investigate seal hunters, animal activists demand

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

GLOBEANDMAIL.com

By MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT 
The International Fund for Animal Welfare says the Department of Fisheries 
and Oceans has failed to monitor widespread violations of rules designed to 
ensure that the East Coast harp-seal hunt is conducted as humanely as possible.
The group videotaped dozens of what it said were sloppy and needlessly cruel 
killings in late March on ice floes north of Prince Edward Island and said 
there was no visible enforcement action by federal wildlife officers.
Federal marine-mammal hunting regulations require sealers to kill the animals 
quickly to minimize their suffering.
"I saw conscious seals dragged across the ice with boat hooks," Rebecca 
Aldworth, a spokeswoman for the group, said. She also said she observed sealers 
stockpiling critically injured, but still conscious seals for more than an hour 
before skinning them, and animals being skinned alive.
The group showed graphic video images of the suffering animals at a news 
conference yesterday in Toronto. Ms. Aldworth said she personally witnessed 
"hundreds of violations" while observing the hunt for 12 days in late March.
A spokesman for the Fisheries Department said its enforcement officers 
haven't laid any charges this year, although there are investigations into hunting 
in restricted areas "I would disagree with her assertion that we are not taking 
this seriously and we are not enforcing the regulations," Steve Outhouse, a 
spokesman for the department, said.

full story:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040415/SEALS1
5/TPNational/Canada 



“I personally cannot get overly worked up about the deprivation of human 
rights in a world where non-humans have no rights at all. Until animals and nature 
have rights, none of us have any rights at all because without animals, 
ecosystems and nature's diversity, rights are meaningless. Humans are a group that 
was never very successful to begin with. Overly territorial, obsessed with 
trivialities, violent, petty, and completely lacking in empathy for other 
species. The world would be a much nicer place without us." Captain Paul Watson 
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