Start date seal hunt delayed
The organisation of this expedition to the Canadian seal hunt is turning out to be a real pain in the proverbial. I'm glad that I don't have to sort out all of the helicopters and accommodation, otherwise I'd really have lost the plot by now!
The Canadian government seems to be doing its utmost to make the lives of the protesters and other observers as awkward as possible. Last Friday I got a call from my hosts, the www.hsus.org, to say that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had suddenly decided to delay the start of the hunt until 29th March. Aaaarrggghhh!!!
Presumably this is a cynical attempt on the part of the Canadian authorities to thwart the HSUS's and other organisation's plans. The ice floes (and thus also the seals) seem to be drifting further north past the Magdalen Islands, thus necessitating a big rethink and regrouping of efforts . The helicopters and hotel rooms need to be rebooked. It's also possible that we now may not even be staying in Charlottetown any longer, but instead elsewhere in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I've now rebooked my flight to Canada to arrive in Montreal on 27th, but am going to have to wait to sort out the internal travel arrangements until there's more clarity.
It's quite likely that the delay of the massacre has a lot to do with the increase in protest activity surrounding the hunt. When I spoke to Andrew, my HSUS contact yesterday, he said that an international travel alert had been issued to Canadians abroad warning them that the embassies and consulates would be shut due to all the protests on the International day of action! Sounds like they're running scared. I really had to laugh when I heard this.
Another reason for this delay, however, could be an attempt to make the commercial seal hunt look as if it only concerns adult animals. By the time it will now start, there will be few whitecoats left (it's illegal to kill these anyway). Still, it'll be a hard job to convince people that a seal of four weeks old is actually an adult. It's complete nonsense. Besides, it doesn't really matter how old a seal is when it dies at human hands. Killing these creatures solely to obtain their fur pelts is morally reprehensible, whichever way you look at it.
Finally, I got some great news today that has nothing to do with the hunt. In January we submitted a complaint about a website of the Dutch fur industry to the Dutch Advertising Standards Commission (RCC). They had published extremely misleading information on the orgins of fur. The RCC agreed and upheld our complaint. That will teach them to be more careful about the misleading info they spread!
The Canadian government seems to be doing its utmost to make the lives of the protesters and other observers as awkward as possible. Last Friday I got a call from my hosts, the www.hsus.org, to say that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had suddenly decided to delay the start of the hunt until 29th March. Aaaarrggghhh!!!
Presumably this is a cynical attempt on the part of the Canadian authorities to thwart the HSUS's and other organisation's plans. The ice floes (and thus also the seals) seem to be drifting further north past the Magdalen Islands, thus necessitating a big rethink and regrouping of efforts . The helicopters and hotel rooms need to be rebooked. It's also possible that we now may not even be staying in Charlottetown any longer, but instead elsewhere in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I've now rebooked my flight to Canada to arrive in Montreal on 27th, but am going to have to wait to sort out the internal travel arrangements until there's more clarity.
It's quite likely that the delay of the massacre has a lot to do with the increase in protest activity surrounding the hunt. When I spoke to Andrew, my HSUS contact yesterday, he said that an international travel alert had been issued to Canadians abroad warning them that the embassies and consulates would be shut due to all the protests on the International day of action! Sounds like they're running scared. I really had to laugh when I heard this.
Another reason for this delay, however, could be an attempt to make the commercial seal hunt look as if it only concerns adult animals. By the time it will now start, there will be few whitecoats left (it's illegal to kill these anyway). Still, it'll be a hard job to convince people that a seal of four weeks old is actually an adult. It's complete nonsense. Besides, it doesn't really matter how old a seal is when it dies at human hands. Killing these creatures solely to obtain their fur pelts is morally reprehensible, whichever way you look at it.
Finally, I got some great news today that has nothing to do with the hunt. In January we submitted a complaint about a website of the Dutch fur industry to the Dutch Advertising Standards Commission (RCC). They had published extremely misleading information on the orgins of fur. The RCC agreed and upheld our complaint. That will teach them to be more careful about the misleading info they spread!
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