Useful points for letters about wildlife culls


Letters about the Canadian seal hunt

  1. Write to the Canadian High Commissioner asking the Canadian Government to stop the seal hunt:
    Mr. James R. Wright
    High Commissioner for Canada
    Canadian High Commission
    1 Grosvenor Square
    London W1K 4AB
  2. Email the Canadian Prime Minister at pm@pm.gc.ca asking the Canadian Government to stop the seal hunt.

    Or send a letter to:
    The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
    Office of the Prime Minister
    80 Wellington Street
    Ottawa
    K1A 0A2
    Canada

Suggested points to cover in letters and emails protesting about the Canadian seal cull:

  • The Canadian seal hunt is the largest slaughter of marine mammals on earth.
  • Each year, hundreds of thousands of harp and hooded seal pups are slaughtered on the ice fields off Canada's east coast for their pelts (fur coats and skins).
  • Over 95% of harp seal pups are killed when they are just days or weeks old.
  • The methods used to kill the seals are cruel. Early in the season, younger seals are killed with clubs or hakapiks while they lie defenceless on the ice. Later in the season, older seals are usually shot with a rifle, both on the ice and in the water. Many seals are wounded by these methods and escape to suffer a prolonged and painful death under the ice.
  • The hunt is conducted in such a hurry that seals are often stunned and not killed. In 2001, an independent veterinary study concluded that improper use of the hakapik was leading to ‘considerable and unacceptable suffering’.
  • There is no reason to cull the seals. The harp and hooded seal numbers do not need controlling. These seal species were not responsible for the collapse of the Atlantic cod stocks. This environmental disaster was due to overfishing and failures in fisheries management. Killing seals will not help fish stocks recover.
  • The number of seals killed every year is not sustainable. As a result of the hunt, the seal population is in decline.
  • In addition to overexploitation, global warming is threatening the survival of the seal populations. Climate change is reducing the extent of seasonal sea-ice, the seals’ critical breeding habitat, causing many pups to die.
  • The majority of Canadians, and millions of people around the world are opposed to Canada’s commercial seal hunt.
  • The seal hunt has minimal economic value. It accounts for less than one half of one percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
  • The hunt is internationally recognized as being cruel and unnecessary: the EU has now banned the trade in seal products which means there will be national bans on commercial trading in seal products in 57 countries worldwide.

For more info see our factsheet on the Canadian seal hunt.


Letters regarding the badger cull in Wales

Suggested points to cover in an email to Welsh Assembly Minister for Rural Affairs, Elin Jones urging her to reconsider the decision to allow a badger cull in Wales.

  • Badgers are not responsible for the increasing rates of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle. No scientific evidence exists linking badgers to the bovine TB epidemic.
  • In reality, the disease is caused by the crowded, dirty conditions in which cattle are kept, especially dairy cows, combined with the stress and poor health they suffer.
  • Dairy cows spend long periods in overcrowded, dark, damp and poorly ventilated buildings, standing in their own muck. There is also the physiological stress of having to produce unnaturally large amounts of milk.
  • Research has shown that movement of infected cattle around the country is the single most important factor in spreading bovine TB. Martin Hancox, zoologist and former member of the Badgers and Bovine TB Panel says: ‘TB is appearing in areas that have been TB-free for ten years, sometimes longer. The badgers were there all the time: are they supposed to have sat around for a decade and then one day decided to infect cows?’
  • Since the 1970s, thousands of badgers have been killed in a failed attempt to eliminate bTB.
  • Licensing farmers and landowners to kill more badgers will not halt the spread of the disease.
  • The Welsh Assembly should accept the Independent Scientific Group’s Report, which cost £50 million and took 10 years to complete. The report concluded that:
    • killing badgers would not significantly reduce bTB in cattle
    • the government should concentrate on controlling the disease in the cattle population


© Animal Aid 2012