The original article appeared on PEICanada.com...

How disappointing it is to see more whining and complaining about NGOs from Fisheries Minister Gail Shea. If she’s not careful, her term will be up before she even begins to address the real issues behind Canada’s commercial seal hunt.

I invite Minister Shea to view the seal hunt footage taken in 2007/2008/2009 by sealing observers, myself included. This is the same footage shown to European parliamentarians. This footage is not outdated - as the minister alleges - nor does it contain images of whitecoat seals.

Europeans know perfectly well the seals killed in the current hunt are not whitecoats. They also know it is irrelevant. When we talk about the difference between a two-week-old whitecoat, and the same pup once it starts to moult a few days later, colour doesn’t matter does it?

This footage shows current and graphic examples of inhumane killing during Canada’s commercial seal hunt. Seal pups are shown hooked in the face and dragged across the ice, while clearly conscious and struggling. It shows seals shot, wounded and left to suffer for prolonged periods.

I challenge Minister Shea to face all Canadians and tell them that what she sees on those videos is “humane,” that it is “professional,” and she is still proud to “stand up” for the sealing industry.

I invite her to explain to all Canadians why her government continues to waste millions of taxpayers’ dollars annually - the WTO challenge alone will cost an estimated $10 million - to support an industry that brought in little more than a million dollars last year, provides only a few days work, and tarnishes other industries such as tourism and fisheries. Taxpayer dollars wasted on trying to keep the sealing industry alive would be better spent on finding economically viable alternatives to sealing.

Meanwhile, Minister Shea’s continued enthusiasm for criticizing animal welfare NGOs simply demonstrates that she has no good arguments to defend Canada’s commercial seal hunt.

Perhaps that’s because there aren’t any?

Sheryl Fink
Senior Research and Projects Specialist
International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)
Guelph, Ontario

The IFAW observation team has arrived safely in Charlottetown, PEI to once again observe Canada's Commercial Seal Hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We've moved our supplies and helicopters into the hangar and are set and ready to document the hunt with photographers, vidographers and a special high definition camera mounted to the bottom of one of the helicopters.

The seal herd this year is packed in close to the northwest section of The Magdalen Islands and there is solid ice in the gulf for the first time since 2005. The commercial seal hunt officially opened yesterday with a "landsmen" hunt -- where sealers walk off the islands or use snowmobiles to access the hunt. Unfortunately, due to poor weather conditions -- fog, snow and high winds -- we were unable to take our helicopters out to observe and document any sealing activity. This morning we awoke to more snow, so the outlook is not so good for documentation today either. Our best hope is that the weather will clear and we will be able to get out later today so we can show the world the cruelty that occurs on the ice floes off the eastern coast of Canada.