Vegetarian Star

Bill Maher has a guest post at the New York Daily News urging his Canadian friends to make strides towards ending the country’s annual seal hunt.

Ever the sarcastic personality Maher is, he uses examples of how other governments have agreed the hunt is senseless, while Canada falls behind even the…gasp…United States Senate!

“Opposition around the world is growing. Last year, the U.S. Senate – a group of people who usually can’t agree that the sky is blue – unanimously passed a resolution calling for an immediate end to the annual slaughter. But the Canadian government just keeps putting its fingers in its ears and singing “la, la, la” so that it won’t hear anything it doesn’t like. Or, if it does hear, it responds with all the subtlety and sophistication of a fistfight in the men’s room at a monster-truck rally.”

(more…)

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Pamela Anderson says seals are being killed, but no one’s buying.

In a letter to the Canadian Ambassador to the U.S., Gary Doer, Pamela questions the continuation of the annual seal hunt despite signs the market is declining.

She then questions if the government is subsidizing hunters.

“Why it is that sealers in Québec were forced to throw their pelts overboard because of the lack of markets, while in Newfoundland, a certain processor is seemingly able to find people willing to pay double last year’s value of a pelt?”

“Given sealing-industry insiders’ reports of a negative market outlook for this year and given the accounts claiming that some processors have two to three years of pelts stockpiled that they cannot get rid of, who or where is the market for the 65,000 seals who have been killed this year.”

According to PETA, Pamela made the effort to personally hand deliver the letter with her questions to Mr. Doer.

Canada’s seal hunt ended early this year, a combination of both reduced demand and low harvest.

According to Harpseals, Larry Yetman, fisheries resource management officer for the Newfoundland and Labrador coastal region, pretty much confirmed Pamela’s statements regarding the demand for pelts.

Although pelt prices were selling for nearly double compared to last year’s–at $21–fisherman knew their efforts to collect would not be profitable, as the number of ships that launched from Newfoundland’s ports was down by 500.

“Every sealer in Newfoundland would have considered going out on the ice for that price, but there aren’t any buyers,” Yetman said.

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Kelly Osbourne will do Justin Bieber if Canada stops clubbing seals.

Ahem, she will do an impression of Bieber’s performance, that is.

She was recently quoted as saying, “Canada, if you cancel the seal hunt, I will dress up like Justin Bieber and sing one of his songs on YouTube.”

The Humane Society of the United States reports that many Newfoundland sealers are willing to consider a federal buyout of the sealing industry that would compensate them for lost revenue and develop economic alternatives if the hunt is closed completely.

It would great if the other half of them would be so terrified of watching a continuous play video of a Justin Bieber lookalike, they’d immediately throw their clubs away.

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The all vegetarian band Rise Against is offering a prize to its fans in exchange for a little animal activism.

In protest of Canada’s annual seal slaughter, the band is asking people to gather signatures for the petition to stop the hunts.

For each city they’re playing on their summer tour in Canada with Rancid, the fan with the most signatures will win the package of free tickets to the show as well as a meet and greet with the band.

According to PETA, over 200,000 seals were slaughtered last year.

The organization is continuing to keep the heat on Canada even beyond the band’s tour, hoping to put the spotlight on the country as the 2010 Winter Olympics nears.

“The international outcry against Canada’s shameful seal slaughter grows louder every year, and now Rise Against have added their powerful voice to the chorus,” says Peta2 Assistant Director Dan Shannon. “If Canada wants to clean up its world image for the Olympics, the first thing it should do is call off the massacre.”

For more information, visit Peta2.org.

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