1. Canadian sealer Mark Small knowingly breaks the law, gets charged, then spends 13 years fighting charges claiming that officials with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans entrapped him, encouraged him to kill blueback  hooded seal pups and told him the law would not be enforced.

 

Small states that ". . .everybody was fully aware that DFO turned a blind eye to the activities that were taking place."

2.  Last week, Mark Small is convicted of breaking the law. 

 

3.  This very same week,  the very same convicted sealer, Mark Small, is on yet another European junket with the Canadian government and DFO - courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer - as  Canada's  "model sealer" and spokesperson to defend what they call a "humane" and "well-regulated" seal hunt! The very same man who testified in court that DFO encouraged him to break the law!!

 

Mark Small's testimony confirms what many critics of Canada's commercial seal hunt have been saying all along: the Canadian government is more than content to turn a blind eye to what occurs off its shores each spring. And sealers have no problems ignoring the regulations, confident that they are unlikely to be charged or convicted.  The fact that Canadian tax payers' dollars are are being used to send a convicted sealer to Europe (this is at least his second trip this past year) to defend this inhumane and unnecessary slaughter is ridiculous beyond the absurd.

The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans has finally admitted what IFAW has been saying for years: that the current Marine Mammal Regulations are not in line with the recommendations of veterinarians, and do not meet the  requirements for humane killing as presented in the proposed European ban on  seal products.
 
In response,  they are cynically proposing "tweaks" to the Regulations, that they claim will make the seal hunt more humane and allow Canada to circumvent any EU trade ban. But the proposed changes will do nothing to improve  animal welfare, and shouldn't fool any European policy-maker.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare's  Senior Research Scientist Sheryl Fink was quoted in a widely distributed Canadian Press news article, saying the propsed changes were "completely unacceptable from an animal welfare point of view.”
 
Prior to the  changes being posted in the Canada Gazette, IFAW submitted comments to the DFO, outlining why the amendments are  entirely inadequate, and will do little to improve the way seals are killed  in the course of Canada's commercial seal hunt.

You can read IFAW's comments here.