- "Just metres away from us, conscious seal pups were
sliced open. They were dragged across the ice with boathooks. Injured seals
were left to die in stockpiles of carcasses."
-
- MONTREAL -- Authorities today tallied the number of seals
killed in one of Canada's biggest hunts in decades, as an animal advocacy
group claimed hunters were guilty of "terrible cruelty" towards
their prey.
-
- The hunt in eastern Newfoundland, which opened on Tuesday,
officially shut down overnight, after Fisheries and Oceans department officials
judged a quota of 246,900 carcasses had likely been reached.
-
- Should their count find the number of dead seals short
of that number, the around 13,000 commercial and amateur hunters will have
a short 24-hour window to fulfill the quota.
-
- Nearly 100,000 harp seals were killed last month in the
Magdalen Islands, a Quebec archipelago in the Gulf of St Lawrence.
-
- In all, hunters are permitted to kill a total of 350,000
harp seals on the ice floes this year.
-
- Canada says harp seals are not in danger and their exploding
population is endangering cod stocks. Last year the government authorised
a cull of nearly a million harp seals over three years. Nearly 300,000
seals were killed last year.
-
- This year's seal hunt has outraged some animal activists
which reject government claims the seals are killed humanely.
-
- "I've observed the Canadian seal hunt each year
for the past five years," said Rebecca Aldworth," of the International
Fund for Animal Welfare.
-
- "This year we saw terrible cruelty, and almost no
government monitoring of the hunt," she said in Toronto.
-
- "Just metres away from us, conscious seal pups were
sliced open. They were dragged across the ice with boathooks. Injured seals
were left to die in stockpiles of carcasses."
-
- Harp seals, now have an estimated population of 5.2 million
compared to 1.8 million in 1970, according to the Department of Fisheries
and Oceans.
-
- Amid calls for boycotts and criticism in the 1980s, Canada
banned the killing of pups younger than 12 days.
-
- Copyright 2004 News Limited. http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9284986%255E1702,00.html
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