Left twiddling our thumbs...

15.15
By lunch time it seems clear that no helicopter is going to take off today. With the freezing fog and highs winds it´s just too dangerous. The pilots aren´t happy either and now have to go and scrape all the ice off their rotorblades.

The good news is that the storm seems to be moving off. It´s now dry in Charlottetown, but bitterly cold due to the wind. The ice conditions should be a bit better tomorrow since everything will have frozen over and should be less slushy. Yesterday this proved to be a real hinderance to our colleagues who did manage to get out there in the morning. Everyone reckons we should get out there in the morning and I´m scheduled again to be on the first flight at 5 am.

The terrible weather conditions have also prevented the sealers from extending their carnage from far beyond their boats. According to Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd, everyone is stuck in the ice. Even an coastguard ice breaker!! This should at least slow them down and give us the opportunity to collect more material.

One last piece of news. Yesterday I wrote about a young seal left to suffocate in its own blood for 1,5 hours. Rebecca Aldworth spoke to Roger Simon of the DFO and asked whether such seals can be removed from the ice and taken to the Atlantic Veterinary School here on PEI. No one is able to euthanise such animals. She convinced him and the vets to allow us to stick such an animal in the helicopter and take it to be saved or put to sleep. I´ve got to say that I´m suprised that he conceded to this. The night before Rebecca wiped the floor with him during a television news programme with regard to the cruelty of the hunt and DFOs failure to uphold the law.

I´m now going to chill out and mentally prepare myself for the horrors to come....

Bad weather continues...

11.30
The weather hasn´t improved at all. There is still so much freezing fog and high winds that we cannot take off. We´re going to sit it out, but it seems increasingly more likely that nobody will make it out to the ice today. We´re all really disappointed. At least we´re scheduled to be on the very first flight out. Some are less fortunate. Ryan, a Canadian documentary maker, has to get back to Halifax later today. Although he´s managed to gather a lot of interview material, he will now be reliant on the film taken by the HSUS crews.

In the meantime I´ve heard more about the Sea Shepherd´s activities. It appears that when the Farley Mowat started filming the slaughter, a coastguard ship came out at them, crushing helpless baby seals in their path, and nearly rammed them. A sealing boat also tried the same thing. As it passed them by, its captain pointed a high powered rifle at one of the Sea Shepherd crew members. A complaint to the Canadian police was just ignored, as Paul Watson writes on his site, the authorities here are more concerned with the activists who point their cameras at seal killers than sealers who point their firearms at activists. The mind boggles!

Still grounded

6.45 am

I crawled out of be this morning just before 5am. At six we were supposed to be heading to the helicopters. A powerful wind rages outside and there is freezing rain. When we get to the HSUS headquarters we´re disapponted to hear that the helicopters can´t take off due to the freezing fog. Instead we all just sit down and have breakfast. In spite of the fact that we´re all pretty pissed off, there´s a fantastic feeling of cameraderie here. We all sit down to eat breakfast together. Most of us have only just met, but we share a common bond and reason for being here.

I take the opportunity to get to know top nature photographer Brian Skerry a little better. A few months ago I stood in awe looking at his underwater shots of harp seals at an exhibition in London, now he´s helping me sort out a technical problem with my camera. He´s one of the professional photographers who are currently here to record this mass destruction of animal life. We´re dead pleased to have free access to his photographic material. If you get the chance, check out his website for the most fabulous shots of seals.He has captured their beauty and vulnerability perfectly.

I´m feelin really restless. We´ve travelled so far to bear witness to this hunt and we haven´t yet succeded in getting out to the ice floes. It is so important that more visual evidence of the hunt and the sealers transgressions of the Marine Mammal Regulations be recorded. They are now able to carry on killing regardless of the freezing fog. It suits them fine that we aren´t out there. Of course they´d rather not be in the picture.

I shall now wait for the next weather reports about the Magdalen Islands where the seals are. I should know more around 8 am.

Grounded :-(

In the course of the morning, the weather conditions have worsened. At midday we pace around the HSUS head office. The prospects aren't good. The group that left this morning haven't had it easy. They are not only witnessing the horrors of the hunt, but the camerawork is made extra difficult by the rain. We hear that the IFAW didn't even attempt to land on the ice today since it was so dangerous.

Things aren't looking good for our first trip to the ice. The return of the helicopters is delayed by the fact that they are forced to refuel on the Magdalen islands. Without this fuel they'd never make it back to the heliport where we await them. It is now extremely uncertain whether we will be able to take off at all. The pilots are really experienced and risk-takers, if they say it's too dangerous no-one is going to argue with them!

As we wait, a CBC journalist arrives to interview Rebecca Aldworth as soon as she arrives. I get talking to him and tell him about the weight of Dutch public opinion against the hunt. Before I know it I'm on camera telling our story. I think that it'll be broadcast this evening on Canadian TV.

The two helicopters arrive in the pouring rain. Everybody looks really wiped out emotionally. They begin to share their experiences with us. Even veterans of the seal campaigns are highly disturbed by what they have seen. The hunt is more brutal than ever. Everyone listens as Rebecca is interviewed.

The lot of one particular seal, barely three weeks old, has made a deep impression on everyone. This animal survived being clubbed, but was left for an hour and a half next to a dead seal slowly suffocating in his own blood. Everyone is angry and frustrated. They are forbidden to intervene & no sealer comes back to finish the animal off. He continues to suffe. At least if a sealer comes back he could be put out of his misery. Rebecca tells that they were seriously considering loading the seal into the helicopter and taking it to the vet's school on PEI.
rAls dat zo was dan was hij uit zijn lijden verlost. She asks where the hell the DFO were to uphold the marine mammal regulations. They only saw a spotter plan which was checking up on the observers. She's furious and not without good cause. After 1.5 hours a skinning team arrives, steps on the seal, notices that it is still alive and clubs it to death. It is too barbaric for words.

As she tells her story, tears well up in my eyes. I haven't even got ou to the ice yet. I now also have a stay of execution. There is such thick fog that it is too dangerous to fly. We're really disappointed, but we are now scheduled to leave at 6 am next morning - at least if the weather permits...

Needless to say, I'll keep you posted.

Mass slaughter begun

At 6.oo this morning the mass slaughter of seals began. Fortunately there is a huge amount of media interest in this event, at least back home. Krista van Velzen has been interviewed by Radio 1 and this morning I was called by the Jeugdjournaal. It is so very important that everybody what's happening out here. It goes on far away from the public view and people must know the hunting of young seals for their fur still goes on in this day and age. The Canadians are good at hiding their dirty little secret. Many people have no idea that the seal hunt still exists. Things are different back home thanks to our high profile campaigns. 97% of Dutch people, according to our recent survey, are aware of the seal hunt. According to my colleagues here the percentage is far lower in Canada itself.

We've now got our pemits and are $25 CA poorer, while the sealers only have to shell out $5 to butchers seals. The people at the DFO were surprisingly friendly when they interviewed me & I promised to behave myself out there on the ice. They even warned us to be careful since the ice is treacherous due to the heavy rain.

As we await the permits, we get a couple of juicy bits of news. At the moment there is a major standoff going on between the Sea Shepherd and the Canadian coastguard. I'm sure that this will result in a load of arrests, but then again that's exactly what they were aiming for! The second bit of news is that a number of sealing boats have found themselves in big trouble due to the appalling weather conditions. One has apparently even sunk! I'm sure that I'll be hearing more in the course of the day.

I'm due to board a helicopter bound for the ice floes at 12.30. There's another group out there right now. I'm curious about what they've seen and I hope that the weather will allow us to take off again. I'm shortly off to the HSUS base camp to try on my survival suit, There's a whole rack of them hanging there and special boots to be able to walk on the ice. I shall pull on my thermal underwea, grab my camera stuff and tripod and steel myself for the horrors that await me...

At HSUS headquarters

The rain is pouring down as we arrive in Charlottetown in a small propeller plane. This does not bode well. If the weather is too bad then the helicopters will be unable to take off in the morning when the hunt begins. Bad and stormy weather can also change the ice conditions and break it up even further than it is already making it difficult to land. It has become increasingly warmer here during the last week and the ice is melting fast.

As I arrive at the HSUS headquarters I am given a hearty welcome by my international colleagues. They are so pleased that we've made it out here to the back of beyond and that Bont voor Dieren is doing all that it can to pressurise the Canadian government to put an end to this atrocity for once and for all. The hotel where they are based is a hive of activity. All sorts of people are wandering around here - activists, photographers, film crews, journalists and helicopter pilots. There's an amazing atmosphere of camaraderie here. We all gather round a TV to watch the documentary 'Seal Wars', which Rebecca Aldworth - veteran of many seal campaigns and main organising force behind this seal watch - says should help us put what we a shortly to see in a clear historical context. It also gives us a taster of the horrific things that we are about to see for real.

The images of the protests during the 1970s are particularly impressive. We see people blocking the paths of sealing boats, which tower behind them. We see Paul Watson, formerly of Greenpeace now of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, handcuffing himself to the winch that was being used to haul pelts on board. Watson is the topic of conversation of the day. He is planning to be in the Gulf of St. Lawrence tomorrow morning when the hunt starts at 6 am. He doesn't have a permit to be there, so he and his large crew will all be arrested. That'll be a great publicity stunt. I'm curious how it'll all turn out!

The HSUS is planning to be there to film the action. However, they can only take off once it is light and won't arrive in the neighbourhood until just before 7am. That is if they are able to take off at all. We're due to fly out to the ice this afternoon along with a film crew to record some interview material. They want me to talk about the results of our survey research and opposition to the hunt in the Netherlands. I hope that I have some voice left to do so, it's been disappearing into croak during the last 24 hours!

First we are going to have to get our permits sorted out. We have to promise the DFO that we are going to behave ourselves while we're out there. Once we have the permits sorted, we can get out to the ice and see the horrors of the seal hunt with our very own eyes. Can't say that I'm looking forward to it, but it is all very exciting. It seems so surreal to be here and to know that within about 12 hours I shall bear witness to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent seals.

Greetings from Montreal

We touch down safely in Montreal after a nearly seven hour flight. The plane was delayed for an hour or so and we were forced to sit on the tarmac while the flight engineers figured out whether the warning light showing that a door was open was actually telling the truth. I find myself in good company with MP Krista van Velzen and journalist Bart Olmer. We spend most of the time chatting away. Krista's tales of swimming out to nuclear submarines in a diving suit and being locked up for weeks in a Scottish prison remind me that she has a colourful past as an environmental activist. She's just the right politician for the job!

Tomorrow afternoon we fly out to Charlottetown, hopefully well-rested. My international colleagues at the HSUS are already there and have spent the last few days checking out the ice conditions and filming baby seals on the ice. They describe the most magical and spectacular scenes, but also the ominous sight of all of the sealing boats on the horizon. I'm saddened by the fact that by the time I get out there the ice will be simply covered with blood and littered with the skinned remains of thousands of young animals. I shall probably never get to see the seal nursery or get close to these beautiful passive creatures. They are curious and friendly towards those who come to observe them, unfortunately next human that they see will probably kill them.

All systems go

The cats know that something is up as I fish out my travel bag to start packing for my trip. At least I don't have to worry about them while I'm away. They are undoubtedly going to be spoilt rotten by Myriam, my cat-sitter who is moving into my place tomorrow to take care of them. That was just one of the many things that I had to sort out for this trip. There were so many details to take care of. Things that you would never usually think of, like can I still wear my contact lenses in -20°c conditions, or will they freeze in my eyeballs. Needless to say my optician had never been asked such a question before!

Fortunately the organisation of this whole expedition has been made much easier by the generosity of others. I only had to utter the horrific words 'seal hunt' and people were falling over themselves to help our organisation. I'm eternally grateful to the outdoor sports chain Bever Zwerfsport for providing the special clothing necessary for the expedition and also to Foka Rotterdam for supplying a fantastic new digital SLR camera so that we can record the atrocities. Even the KLM did their utmost to help us when we unexpectedly had to change our plane tickets. It's wonderful that we have the support of so many people. I am deeply touched by the words of all the strangers that have written to me during the last few days to express their moral support and admiration for my 'courageousness'. This all leaves me feeling more determined than ever to continue the fight against the sealers and cruel fur industry.

On the eve of my departure, I can now breathe a sigh of relief. Everything is set. My stuff is all packed. I've found my passport. Now all I have to do is put my clock forward an hour and get to Schiphol airport on time. At noon I shall meet up with my two travelling companions: MP Krista van Velzen and Bart Olmer, a journalist for the Telegraaf (a daily newspaper with the greatest circulation in the Netherlands). The day before yesterday I discovered that Joanneke Kruijsen of the PvdA (Labour Party) and the other politician Janneke Snijder, who torpedoed Van Velzen's resolution this week, will be on the same flight to Montreal together with a number of other animal welfare campaigners from IFAW, plus I'm sure a few other journalists. Together we should be able to send a clear message to Canada: the Netherlands is no longer prepared to stomach seals being clubbed to death!

By the time you read my next blog, I'll hopefully already have arrived in Montreal. À bientôt!

Avoiding PTS

Yesterday Andrew, my HSUS contact, gave me the details of where I'll be staying in Charlottetown next week. I presumed that it would be just a dead ordinary motel, but it turns out to be a rather luxurious 5 star inn. Aside from logistical considerations. I guess that our hosts want to soften the blow of having spent the days watching seals having their skulls bashed in by giving their foreign guests some real comfort. I also suspect that they managed to get a really good deal on the hotel rooms since few tourists visit venture to this town out of season.

A few days ago I paid a visit to a psychologist I know to find out how I should best deal with the atrocities I'm about to see and how to avoid running the risk of developing post-traumatic stress problems. She explained that PTS usually occurs as a result of feelings of powerlessness. That you experience something that you can actually do nothing to change. The very fact that I'm more than 100% behind the goal of the whole expedition should make all the difference. As long as I keep in mind exactly why I'm actually there.

Any suffering inflicted deliberately on animals and people affects me deeply, but I tend to deal with things really pragmatically and I know how to translate my emotion into practical deeds that also contribute a solution to the problem. This is why I've been a vegetarian for half my life, why I'm a professional animal activist and volunteer on the animal ambulance. The psychologist insisted that the most important thing was to not bottle up my feelings and to talk with my travelling companions, friends, family and colleagues about it all. I guess that this weblog also offers the opportunity to immediately deal with my feelings and share them with others.

Politicians: Saving their own skins instead of those of the seals

I'm completely flabbergasted by the short-sightedness and small mindedness of the Dutch political world. This morning Socialist Party MP Krista van Velzen tabled a really good resolution for a national ban on the trade and import of seal fur and other products. This was undersigned by the Green Party (GroenLinks) too. At the Bont voor Dieren office, we sat glued to the computer following the lively parliamentary debate that ensued.

To cut a long story short, van Velzen's resolution upset two other MPs of the Labour Party and the right wing VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy), who are currently drafting a proposal for an legislative act to achieve the same aim. This resolution would have cut a load of corners in terms of political process and have achieved a ban more quickly.

Unfortunately, political games were being played at the seals expense. The 2 politicians who wanted to submit their own bill decided to save their own skins instead of those of the seals and torpedoed Van Velzen's resolution, by saying that it 'didn't go far enough'. I helped draft the bloody thing, so I can't possibly see what was missing!!! Interestingly enough, it is these very politicians that have been invited to observe the seal hunt by IFAW.

In the meantime, probably just to piss all the left-wing parties off, Wien van den Brink, one of the idiots from the LPF (List Pim Fortuyn) and a known hunter, submitted his own resolution to encourage the Canadians to seek more animal-friendly methods of killing the seals! Naturally this resolution completely ignored the whole reason why the animals are butchered in the first place. What really took the biscuit is that the labour Party & the VVD supported this resolution. Which is really bloody idiotic given that they are trying to draw up legislation to prevent seal fur and other seal products from entering the Netherlands... perhaps they are just showing their true colours.

Counting the days...

I'm now counting the days until I set off for Canada. In 5 days time I'll be cooped up in a plane on the way to Montreal. I've now also acquired a new travelling companion. Bont voor Dieren has invited Socialist Party MP Krista van Velzen to join the expedition. She's a real activist at heart and has a track record of standing up for the rights of seals and other fur-bearing animals. Last Tuesday she showed up at our demo in the Hague with a delegation from the SP. Tomorrow she is due to table a resolution in the Dutch parliament for a national import ban on seal products. Needless to say, I'm curious whether it will bear any fruit.

During the past few days reports of demos that have been held elsewhere in the world have been flooding in to our officies. Protests against the seal hunt took place from Bogota to Zagreb. We've also been getting a huge number of clippings from national and regional newspapers, which ran stories and photos of our own demo. It's great that there is so much media attention being devoted to the fate of the poor seals.

The sealing issue really gets to a lot of people. I've been fielding phone calls from highly emotional people who feel so powerless because they know than in the space of a few days thousands of seals will meet a bloody end. People want to know whether we can spray the seals with paint to render their fur worthless to the fur industry, which we unfortunately cannot do due to the strict marine mammal regulations. I also had one hysterical woman on the line asking why if the seals 'had to die anyway' couldn't we get the sealers to euthanise them instead of clubbing them to death. She also asked whether there was something that could be put in the seal's food to stop them having babies to save them from such a fate. I'm not quite sure what planet she was living on; a good heart, but completely out of touch with reality!

As I listened to her sob her heart out for 15 minutes, I began to wonder just who was actually going out the the ice floes to witness the hunt for real! :-) Of course, when I get out to the ice, I'm also going to stand there feeling completely powerless. I know that I won't be able to be able to do anything for those seal, but will be able to help create a better and safer future for their species in the future. As a professional animal rights campaigner, I am part of an important social movement that will in the near future ensure that this barbarity will disappear off the face of the planet for once and for all.

Parliamentary questions answered...

Minister Bot (Foreign Affairs) and Minister Veerman (Agriculture) have finally answered a number of parliamentary questions on the prohibition of the import and trade in seal products. Yesterday afternoon their response to these questions was posted on the website of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture. The most important issue was whether these parliamentarians would be prepared to implement a system to exclude the import of seal products similar to the one that was introduced in Belgium last year.

In a nutshell, the Belgian system entails that all seal products can only be imported with a permit, but in reality no permits are ever issued. This is the first step towards a general import ban. At present, a Belgian proposal for a law forbidding the use of and trade in articles made of seal fur is under discussion.

In answer to the Dutch parliamentary questions, Minister Veerman - also on behalf of Minister Bot - argues that he is, in principle, prepared to propose that the Netherlands also introduces measures to restrict the import of seal products, from countries outside of the EU as well as from other member states. On the face of it, this seems pretty promising. However, unfortunately they are a few catches. Firstly, these politicians seek refuge in existing WTO arrangements. They state that all measures to restrict the import of seal products should be in accordance with European and international law. They point to the fact that Canada has already expressed its concerns about the legitimacy of the proposed Belgian legislation. This is no surprise given that it would close off a market for all products of the commercial seal hunt. Secondly, the Ministers believe that there should be an increase in the trade in seal products in the Netherlands to warrant such a ban. They state that 'the import from third countries is virtually absent'. True enough, the Netherlands has not been the direct receiver of unprocessed seal skins in recent years. These pelts generally end up in Norway for processing. Most pelts are then imported into the EU through Denmark and Greece. What happens after that is hard to say. The internal EU trade in seal skins and the clothing and other items in which they are transformed into is extremely difficult to trace. This is made all the more difficult by the fact that fur - no matter what the animal it derives from - is not included in the Dutch regulations for the production and labelling of textile articles. In the Netherlands, there is no legal obligation for manufacturers and retailers to declare that seal fur - or any other fur - is included in their products. One thus cannot say that no seal fur ever enters the country.

From their answers to these parliamentary questions, it is clear that the ministers think that it is far too expensive and a nusiance to establish regulations for seal fur. They don't regard is as being a Dutch problem. Of course, I beg to differ. The national borders should be legally sealed for the import of all seal products. Moreover, a clear message should be sent to Canada by instituting a ban on seal fur on moral grounds. On the basis of a clause in the EC treaty, it is possible to ban trade in goods to protect public morality. The results of our survey that were published yesterday clearly show that the Dutch people firmly support such an import ban and this is all because they deem killing seals for their fur to be morally reprehensible.

95% of Dutch people find the commercial seal hunt unacceptable!

My deep suspicion that the Dutch population are dead against the commercial seal hunt was confirmed today by the results of a survey conducted by TNS NIPO ( Dutch Institute for Public Opinion and Market Research) on behalf of Bont voor Dieren. 95% of Dutch people find the Canadian commercial seal hunt unacceptable. Moreover, there is also massive public support for a Dutch ban on the import and trade in all seal products. 92% of Dutch people believe that Minister Bot of Foreign Affairs should introduce a national import and trade ban on all seal fur and other seal products.

With such results, Minister Bot can no longer continue to ignore the strength of public opinion. Last year he wrote in response to parliamentary questions that he had been informed throroughly about the hunt by the Canadian government. He said that he agreed that it concerned a 'responsible harvest from nature' given that the seal population is not threatened by extinction. The Minister also deemed clubbing to be a humane method for killing the seals. There is nothing humane about smashing in the skulls of young seals just because you want to steal their fur coats. Minister Bot should contemplate the fact that it is ethical reprehensible that the chief goal of the commercial hunt is to obtain seal pelts. There can be no moral justification for killing animals for this purpose.

It was also striking that this research revealed that 92% of the Dutch population found the fate of the seals to be more important than employment opportunities and the economic benefits of the hunt. The Canadian government has argued that the over-fishing of the eastern Canadian waters, which lead to a ban on cod catches in 1992, has meant that the local fishermen's supplementary income from seal hunting has become ever more important. They ask for sympathy for the poor fisherfolk who should be given the chance to earn a couple of extra hundred dollars a year, literally off the backs of seals. The seals are viewed simply as a natural resource and the fact that their lives are worth protecting is not even taken into consideration. Shame on you, Canada.

All sorted!

Yesterday evening I heard that the Huntwatch base camp is going to remain in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island as originally planned. My hosts at the HSUS deem this town to be the safest place to coordinate the Huntwatch activities from. The more northerly lying Magdalen Islands had already been excluded as a possible location for the headquarters given that in the past some seal hunt observers have been physically attacked there. There had been some talk of shifting the entire operation to Stephenville in Newfoundland. I've got to admit, I'm glad that this didn't happen. Stephenville is truly in the middle of nowhere & I didn't fancy having to figure out how on earth I was actually going to get there!

Having received this news I was able to organise the rest of the trip and was able to change the dates the internal flights that I had already book, fortunately without incurring too great a cost. I'm really happy that the travel arrangements are now set in stone. From the very outset, the logistics of the whole operation have been a real headache. Nonetheless, I've been so busy figuring out all of the practical details that I've actually had little opportunity to dwell upon what I'm going to experience while I'm out there in the back of beyond. If you stop and think too much about young seals having their skulls smashed in, then you're likely to go round the bend.

I sometimes wonder whether I'm truly a few sandwiches short of the full picnic to have volunteered to join the Huntwatch! Don't get me wrong, I'm still determined as ever to go, it's just that I'm no longer distracted by all of the practical stuff, which gives me more time to think about the atrocious things that I'm shortly going to bear witness to. I've decided that I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend trying not to think about tortured seals, to chill out and try to do some completely different stuff...

Some good & some bad news...

We've been getting reports about the many successful protests that took place on 15th March at Canadian embassies and consulates elsewhere in the world. It's wonderful to see how animal welfare and rights activists across the globe are uniting together to highlight the plight of the seals. At Bont voor Dieren we've been getting many phone calls asking why we cannot spray the seals with paint so that their pelts are less attractive to the sealers. As much as we'd like to do this, our hands are tied. According to the Canadian Marine Mammal Regulations, it is legally prohibited to interfere with the hunt in this way. Moreover, if we did so, we'd stuff things up for all the other activists and observers who want to document the hunt in the future

Got some disappointing news today. The plan was for Marianne Thieme, of the Party for Animals, to accompany me to the hunt. After many sleepless nights she has now decided not to join me as an observer. In her weblog she writes (and I translate very roughly!) "from various quarters I've been hearing that a deep involvement combined with being the mother of a young child can have major, traumatic consequences when one is confronted with newborn baby seals having their skulls smashed in or being skinned alive. It's not that I'm making myself scared, but I realise that I have to be fully functional in the coming months to stand up for the rights of animals in the Netherlands'. If you read Dutch, you can read more on her weblog. Although it is a great shame, I can fully understand her decision and know that she will continue to play an important role in maintaining media interest in this brutal hunt at home.

In the meantime, I've been reading that the Canadians seem to be doing their utmost to keep the commercial seal hunt going. Without the governmental subsidies that have been given to perpetuate the hunt, this babarism would probably have long disappeared. The latest strategy is to develop seal products for medical purposes, which seems to be a cynical attempt to make the slaughter of thousands of seals appear to be a benevolent act. Recently, the Minister of Trade for Newfoundland granted CA$50,000 seed money to a company wishing to make a new medical product out of seal oil. Other provincial and federal institutions, such as the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the National Research Council, Industry Canada and the Centre for Fisheries Innovation, have also given financial assistance to this company. In the meantime, a multi-million dollar contract has been signed with a Chinese pharmaceutical company to further develop and market this product in China. Looks like the by-products of the seal hunt are literally going the same way as many of the pelts for which the seals have primarily been clubbed to death.

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!

Great protest!

The protest outside the Canadian embassy yesterday in the Hague was great, even though I'm now completely hoarse from shouting through the megaphone. It gave me a great kick to see how many people really care about what happens to the poor seals. There were people there from all walks of life, young and old, which really proves that there is no such thing as an average animal activist.

We also got support from a political angle, not just from Marianne Thieme, the leader of the Party for Animals, who presented Bont voor Dieren's petition to the embassy, but also from a delegation from the Socialist Party. It was great to see how MP Krista van Velzen and her colleagues joined in the spirit of the whole protest, clambering into white overals to make up part of the living message 'stop the clubs!'

I've also been getting a lot of positive reactions to my Dutch weblog. No-one wants to step into my shoes and go to the hunt, but they think that it is courageous that I'm prepared to do so. I don't feel so brave. The whole prospect is terrifying. After the protest, a woman came up to me and said that my on-line diary had moved her to tears. It's good to know that what I've been writing (at least in my Dutch diary) has affected people and that I can count on their moral support.

International Day of Action coming up!!

At Bont voor Dieren we're really busy gearing up for our protest rally outside the Canadian Embassy in the Hague. 15th March has been declared the International Day of Action against the commercial seal hunt. At noon, there will be 52 different demonstrations held against the Canadian seal hunt in 26 different countries. Together with Marianne Thieme, leader of the Dutch political Party for Animals (Partij voor de Dieren), we will hand over 75,000 signatures of protest to Mr. April, the Canadian Ambassador to the Netherlands.

Our organisation has been protesting against the commercial seal hunt for years, but this is the very first time that a delegation will actually be let into the Embassy! Previously we used to have to pass the petitions through the bars of the Embassy fence to the doorman. People are really enthusiastic about taking part in this rally and the e-mails saying that they'll be there on 15th March between 11.00 and 13.00 just keep pouring in. If you want to take part, you can sign up at info@stopdeknuppels.nl and we'll pass on the details.

If you live elsewhere in the world, you can visit the www.hsus.org site for a full list of rally locations from Argentina to Australia.

Is it all going to be too much for me?

Last night I was reading a number of field reports written by the Canadian activist Rebecca Aldworth, my main contact at the HSUS, during last year's seal hunt. Shortly before all hell broke loose, she travelled to the ice floes to see the baby harp seals. She describes the magical sight of dozens of baby seals sunning themselves on the pristine white ice and the soft noises they make. The pups didn't seem to be at all afraid of people. They just looked on fascinated at the strange beings that had joined them there on the ice. For Rebecca this is clearly a moment if pure pleasure. As a great nature lover, it strikes me as being wonderful to be able to see such a scene with my own eyes. To stand face to face with such an innocent, young and defenceless animal.

Nevertheless, Rebecca's pleasure is short lived. Her stories become ever more grim. I read about piles of corpses and ice that is stained red with blood. I read about a baby seal that instinctively tries to defend itself against a sealer by adopting an open-mouth stance, but only manages to look pathetic because it is so terribly small and young. I read about clubbed seals that are still alive and bleeding to death while the sealers laugh and refuse to return to put them out of their misery. I read about the threats of the sadistic and heartless sealers and how they hurl abuse at the activists and observers.

The more I read, the larger the lump in my throat becomes. For the very first time I begin to experience self-doubt and wonder whether I can really deal with all this. Will I be able to cope with seeing someone club a defenceless young animal just 10 metres away from me? Can I handle the sound of a club smashing in the skull of a living, innocent creature? Will I really be able to cope with the intimidation and threats of the armed and agressive sealers?

It is not that I'm not used to dealing with dead animals. Throughout the past few years I've scraped a multitude of dead animals off the streets of Amsterdam in the course of my voluntary work on the animal ambulance. I am quite accustomed to seeing and handling corpses that have been ripped open or partially skinned, eyes that have popped out of their sockets, intestines protruding out of bodies and limbs that have been ripped off through the force of vehicular violence. I've had to deal with stinking, bloated cadavers that have lain the the water for days and even weeks. Innumerable animals have died before my eyes or in my arms, albeit often with the help of a vet's needle. In this regard, I'm pretty hardened, or rather I tend to deal with these things pragmatically and rationally. It is not that it never affects me, it's just that there is precious little point in being sentimental about it all. If you were, then you couldn't do your job properly. To a certain extent, this also applies to my trip to the ice floes. It's part of my job and is meant to make a valuable contribution towards preventing such atrocities in the future. Nonetheless, I realise full well that - in contrast to the seals - the animals that I encounter on the ambulance are generally not deliberately killed by people. They are usually the victims of accidents that generally cannot be prevented.

How am I then going to deal with watching young seals being brutally clubbed to death? I know damned well that I can become extremely angry when animals are hurt deliberately. I can be tough and talk about it all really rationally, but the fact remains that the few animals that I have seen that have been deliberately murdered or badly abused are etched in my memory (e.g. the drowned pitbull I once fished out of the river Amstel who had been tied to a jetty). Just as the other animal suffering that I have borne witness to during my career, such as the unanaethetised castration of piglets. Their screams will also stay with me forever.

I realise that I will almost certainly have nightmares as a result of going to the seal hunt. This is unavoidable. Nevertheless, I'm more determined to go than ever. There is a much higher goal at stake. Moreover, I truly believe that this is probably one of the most important things that I shall ever get to do in my life.

Why this blog?

I've set up this blog because I'd like to share some of my thoughts and experiences as an animal rights campaigner. I currently work as a policy adviser and lobbyist for a Dutch animal advocacy organisation Bont voor Dieren, which campaigns for the rights and protection of all fur-bearing animals.

At the end of March, some 320,000 young harp seals will be bludgeoned to death by Canadian sealers. As part of our campaign against this commercial hunt, I'm going to be heading off to Prince Edward Island, which is in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in just 12 days time. Together with other animal activists and journalists I shall fly by helicopter to the ice fields to bear witness to this terrible and unnecessary bloodbath. From the ice, I shall report on the cruelty of the hunt and argue the case for a total ban on the import and trade of all seal fur and seal products in both the Netherlands and the EU.

Although I'll also be keeping a Dutch language weblog at http://www.stopdeknuppels.nl, which is due to be launched this weekend, I thought it would be a great idea to also keep an on-line diary in my own native tongue.