Alison Steadman: Seal cull is barbaric
(mar. 27, 2008)
thesun.co.uk
OVER the next few days thousands of seal pups will be clubbed to death in Canada despite protests. The Canadian government claims that the annual hunt is humane and tightly regulated. But actress Alison Steadman vehemently disagrees. The star of BBC TV’s Gavin & Stacey travelled this month to the ice floes in the Gulf of St Lawrence, Newfoundland, with campaign group Respect For Animals to see newborn seals for herself. Here, in an emotional appeal, Alison gives her personal views on why she thinks the cull should be banned.
WHEN I saw the seal pups they had just been born. There was blood on the ice – but from their birth, not because they had been injured.
Out there in this pristine environment, you feel privileged to be watching them.
Many of the seals killed from today will be just three or four weeks old.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on this issue, but I am passionate about wildlife and to me this cull is barbaric.
I’m a meat eater and I think that’s fine as long as animals are treated properly.
I’ve seen footage of how the seals are killed and it is horrendous.
Whack
The sealers have these huge clubs with big hooks on the end.
They literally whack the seals on the head as hard as they can and then hook them in their faces and sling them on a pile.
It’s not a hunt. These creatures can’t run away, they slither on the ice. They are such easy targets.
The mothers have left them by then and they are fending for themselves. A baby deer would run away, but these pups are so trusting.
I’ve been told there’s some evidence that some of them are actually skinned while they are still half-conscious, because the sealers don’t take the time to check each one to see if it’s definitely dead.
This year the Canadian government have said they can cull 275,000 seals, but how do they monitor that?
These guys go out on boats, they’re not going to liaise with each other over how many they kill.
It’s spread over a massive area of ice.
Aside from the cruelty, some estimates say the money that the sealers make from selling these coats, and the oil they take from the adults, is only five per cent of their annual income.
What the Humane Society and Respect For Animals want is for the Canadian government to buy back the licences from these sealers.
It would give the fishermen a substantial sum of money, which would give them a chance to divert their skills into areas like eco-tourism.
It’s an incredibly beautiful part of the world and now whale-watching is so popular there are other ways for them to make money.
A lot of people say: “Why should we tell them what they can and can’t do?” But I disagree.
Yes, they’ve been doing this for generations, but we used to hang people in public too.
We just think we can march all over this planet.
We might rule it, but we have such a responsibility to take care of it for other creatures.
They are at our mercy.
We always think it’s ours to do what we want with, but it’s not.Close_quote |
