photo courtesty of IFAW

Canadian hunters are strapping on their boots and donning their wind-stopper parkas as they prepare to strut their manliness on their country’s Northern regions blanketed in snow and icy sheets.  Blow the trumpets because seal hunting season has begun in Canada. These macho guys are preparing their battlefield tool of choice-wooden clubs–which they will use to blugeon baby seals to death. Horrifying, eh?

The annual Canadian Seal Hunt has begun with the first death today of a baby pup. Although the pristine white fields are now smeared with the blood of a pup, this is only the beginning. The Canadian government is allowing 280,000 more to be clubbed to death to add to the culumulative total of one million killed in the past four years, decreasing the animal’s total population by 30%.

While Russia decided to stop its annual seal hunt and the European Union is considering a ban on seal products, the Canadian government just doesn’t seem to get it.  Oh, Canada?!?  What precipitates such behavior, eh? These so-called manly hunters getting testosterone highs off of killing seal pups are akin to wife beaters who use their victims to validate their misguided machismo. Do your part to stop the largest slaughter of marine mammals worldwide. The International Fund for Animals and the Humane Society of the US both have action pages, including boycotting Canadian seafood, contacting Canadian politicians and educating others about this serious matter.