Canada's Commercial Seal Hunt a Disgrace

Dear leaders,

As a proud Atlantic Canadian, I write to you today in hopes that you will seriously attend to Canada's shameful commercial seal hunt in a most profound way. Please help these off-season fishing communities by engaging them in alternate money making strategies, buy back their licenses, and support eco-tourism in those areas faced with low income or unemployment. To be sure, I would like to see the end of the commercial fishing industry as well. I am for the abolition of the property status of animals.

I have been affected by documentary images of the slaughter and statements made by the killers themselves. It strikes my heavy heart hardest to see them, one by one and generations long, admit that they wish they hadn't done it or that they didn't have to do it.

History proves to us time and time again that sometimes the law is unjust and therefore
unworthy of our tolerance. That some traditions were designed to teach us how to overcome so that everyone may benefit from a civil society. I am asking you today, in utter humility, to take a firm stand against the ruthless exploitation of animals all over the world and particularly now, the Canadian Harp seal.

Consider: "Humans -who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals- have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and animals is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them -without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us." Dr. Carl Sagan and Dr. Ann Druyan, authors of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors 1992
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Krista Simon