Nygel Barker, noted fashion photographer and judge for America’s Next Top Model, is helping put an end to seal slaughter in Canada. He has teamed up with The Humane Society of the United States and asks all you guys out there to protest Canada’s annual commercial seal hunt, which is the largest marine mammal slaughter in the world.
“I hope my photos will encourage ecotourism to the region and prove once and for all that the color of ice should be white, not red.”
What Products Are Made from Seals?
Seals are killed primarily for their fur, which is used to produce fashion garments and other items. There is a small market for seal oil (both for industrial purposes and for human consumption), and seal penises have been sold in Asian markets as an aphrodisiac. There is almost no market for the meat, so seal carcasses are normally left to rot on the ice.
Is the Seal Hunt Cruel?
Yes. In 2001, a report by an independent team of veterinarians who studied the hunt concluded that governmental regulations regarding humane killing were neither being respected nor enforced, and that the seal hunt failed to comply with Canada’s basic animal welfare standards. Shockingly, the veterinarians found that in 42 percent of the cases they studied, the seals had likely been skinned alive while conscious.
Parliamentarians, journalists, and scientists who observe Canada’s commercial seal hunt each year continue to report unacceptable levels of cruelty, including sealers dragging conscious seals across the ice floes with boat hooks, shooting seals and leaving them to suffer in agony, stockpiling dead and dying animals, and even skinning seals alive.
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