A Victory For HSUS

The baby seals of the world, and especially those born in Canada, received a wonderful reprieve from the European Union last week when 550 members of the European Parliament voted to ban the trade of products made from seals throughout the EU member nations.

This will deliver a decisive blow to Canada's seal hunters as Europe is one of the last remaining markets for the products that are made from the seals that they slaughter each year.

The Humane Society of the United States has representatives that travel each year to the ice floes of Canada to report on Canada's annual seal hunt.

Each year, they invite lawmakers from around the world to come and witness the event in the hopes that it will lead to new laws protecting the seals.

This year, one such visitor during the 2006 seal hunt was Swedish Member of the European Parliament Carl Schlyter, who introduced the bill that led to the EU's seal product ban.

Progress Made In Stopping Canada's Seal "Hunt"

Each year, the Humane Society of the United States sends team members to Canada to document that country’s still-legal “hunting” of baby seals on the ice.

HSUS team members brave bitterly cold, dangerous conditions, not to mention the constant threats from the fishermen who turn to butchering baby seals to supplement their income.

This year, the HSUS team made real progress in their efforts to end this gruesome and completely unnecessary slaughter. HSUS has asked people to sign on to a Canadian seafood boycott in the hopes of effecting the market enough that fishermen would abandon the seal “hunt".

Over 600,000 individuals and over 5,000 businesses have pledged to not purchase Canadian seafood until Canada bans the seal “hunt”. The fishing industry is losing money, and prices for seal skins have crashed to $15 (CAD) -- an 86 percent drop from 2006.

Most fishermen aren't bothering to leave home to join the hunt, and tens of thousands of seals have been spared. Also, for the first time in history, Canadians had introduced a bill that would ban the seal slaughter entirely, largely backed by the efforts of HSUS.

Russia has agreed to a ban of killing harp seals less than a year old, effectively ending their “hunt” as the furs of older seals are not a desired commodity. In fact, Yuriy Trutnev, Russia's Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology, called the seal slaughter "bloody," and remarked that the killing of defenseless animals can't be deemed a "hunt."

The Seal Hunt Has Begun

Each year, I get an alert from the Humane Society of the United States, and each year I hope that it is the last time, but it seems like there never will be a last time. The senseless killing of baby seals in Canada began this morning at 2:48 AM Pacific Time, opening yet another season of one of the most unnecessary slaughter of animals by man.

Seal hunters, "regulated" by the Canadian government, are allowed to enter the nurseries where the baby seals are being raised and allowed to club to death 280,000 seals for their fur. It's a good thing we don't have fur, well, at least some of us. I wonder if we'd be clubbing each other to steal each other's fur. We do it to steal other things from each other, right? What if someone's fur was nicer than yours, or would keep you warmer than yours...would you kill them for it? We're killing baby seals to steal their fur.

The worse part is, we are at a point where mankind can manufacture synthetic furs, which truly has made this slaughter of these baby seals completely and totally unnecessary. Seal hunters claim that it is their livelihood, and I get that...I mean, I am sure that I could make a good deal of money clubbing people to death, especially some particular people, but I don't, because that is wrong. Plain and simple.

Each year a large group of Americans, Canadians, and people around the world, call for the Canadian government to end this practice, and each year, they give the same lip service, do nothing, then throughout the year are sure to point out everything that is wrong with America.

I'll let my rant end there, but I encourage you to visit https://www.humanesociety.org to learn more about what the Humane Society of the United States is doing to help stop the seal hunt.

Back In 1904...

Back in 1904...

...the average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.
...only 14% of U.S. homes had a bathtub.
...only 8% of U.S. homes had a telephone.
...a 3-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11.
...there were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.
...the maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 miles per hour.
...Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.
...California was only the 21st most populous state with a mere 1.4 million residents.
...the tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
...the average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents an hour.
...the average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
...a competent accountant could expect to earn $2,000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
...more than 95% of all births in the U.S. took place at home.
...90% of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard".
...sugar cost four cents a pound.
...eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
...coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
...most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
...Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.
...the five leading causes of death in the U.S. were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza, 2. Tuberculosis, 3. Diarrhea, 4. Heart disease, 5. Stroke.
...the American flag had 45 stars.
...Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.
...the population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was 30.
...crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been invented yet.
...there was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
...20% of U.S. adults couldn’t read or write.
...only 6% of all Americans had graduated high school.
...marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
...18% of households in the U.S had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
...there were only about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.
...letters could take months to travel the world. This information came to me in an "electronic" mail, "copied and pasted" by me into a "software program" on a "computer" and delivered to you via the World Wide Web that involves no paper, writing, or teamsters (who drove horses in 1904), in just a couple of seconds...try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years...