‘Baby Seal’ Covered With ‘Blood’ to Be Clubbed Outside Canadian Embassy

PETA Gets Up Close and Personal Over Annual Slaughter

For Immediate Release:
April 9, 2014

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

The demand for seal fur has plummeted to the point that Canada’s annual massacre of tens of thousands of baby harp seals is costing the Canadian government about $7 million a year in subsidies. But the slaughter continues. That’s why PETA is taking its battle against the barbaric activity straight to the Canadian Embassy in Washington, where a man in coveralls will strike a “baby seal” using a hakapik—a club with a metal hook on one end, which sealers use to bludgeon the baby animals in the head. A “bloodied” Canadian flag will wave in the background.

When:   Thursday, April 10, 12 noon

Where:  Outside the Canadian Embassy, 501 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Washington

“Canada’s commercial seal slaughter is despised and condemned around the world,” says PETA Manager of Campaigns Katie Arth. “The only way for the country to clean up its bloodstained image is to stop clubbing and shooting baby seals in the head.”

During the slaughter, tens of thousands of baby seals have their heads bashed in or are shot. Sealers hook seals in the eyes, cheeks, or mouth and drag them across the ice, sometimes while they’re still conscious. This slaughter continues, even though the market for seal products has all but disappeared: The U.S., the EU, Taiwan, Mexico, and Russia—which had been importing 95 percent of Canadian seal pelts—have all banned seal fur. President Barack Obama has even spoken out against the slaughter.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.