~protect our seals:stop the canadian seal hunt~

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*****Protect Seals: What You Can Do*******(all info is credited to "protectseals.org", for more info visit this website) Boycott Canadian seafood Contact Canada's prime minister Contact the nearest Canadian embassy Don't vacation in Canada Contact Canada's minister of international trade Ask your senators to co-sponsor the Levin Resolution Write a letter to the editor Ask designers not to use seal skin Support The HSUS' ProtectSeals campaign Tell everyone you know Wear ProtectSeals apparel Try out a ProtectSeals ring Put ProtectSeals stickers on letters and packages Sign up for Seal Watch Download ProtectSeals badges, banners, and icons Join our boycott of Canadian seafood products. (You can easily identify what seafood comes from Canada by using our downloadable Pocket Guide.)We believe the Canadian government will quickly realize the economic impact of a fisheries boycott is too high a price to pay for the seal hunt. You can start by signing our pledge, which can be found at www.protectseals.org. The HSUS will deliver your pledge to Canada's government so the politicians will know you've joined our international Protect Seals team to end the hunt. The HSUS is asking restaurants and stores where seafood is sold to sign the pledge to boycott some or all Canadian seafood as well. We have already been joined in this effort by more than 2,000 caring companies such as Whole Foods Market, Legal Sea Foods, Wild Oats Markets, and Margaritaville Cafes. Help us make this boycott a success by asking other businesses, such as Red Lobster, to join in and thanking those who have joined. If you would like to ask a business near you to join the boycott, you can print out a PDF version of our pledge for seafood professionals and have them sign it. If you are a restaurant or seafood professional, click here. Contact Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.Prime Minister's Office Right Honorable Stephen Harper 80 Wellington St. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A OA2 613-992-4211 Fax: 613-941-6900 Email: [email protected] or [email protected] Write, fax, email, or call the nearest Canadian embassy. If you are not a U.S. citizen, you can look up the Canadian embassy in your nation. The contact information for the embassy in Washington, D.C., is below:The Honourable Michael Wilson Office of the Ambassador Canadian Embassy 501 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20001 202-682-1740 Fax: 202-682-7701, 202-682-7678 [email protected] Don't vacation in Canada. Consider instead spending your tourist dollars in a nation that does not actively promote the barbaric slaughter of wildlife. Write to the Canadian Tourism Commission and the Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism Office to explain why you've made this decision. Canadian Tourism Commission Four Bentall Centre, Suite 1400 1055 Dunsmuir Street, Box 49230 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V7X 1L5 604-638-8300 Email: Use the Contact Us form on www.canadatourism.com Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism P.O. Box 8700 St. John's, NL Canada A1B 4J6 1-800-563-6353 Email: [email protected] Tell Canada's Minister of International Trade, David Emerson, that the seal hunt damages Canada's international reputation, and remind him that it has resulted in ongoing global boycotts of Canadian seafood and tourism. Say that a hunt opposed by most Canadian citizens shouldn't be allowed to harm Canada's economy. You can email him using our form or contact him using the information below. Minister of International Trade Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada 125 Sussex Drive Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1A 0G2 613-992-7332 Fax: 613-996-8924 Email: [email protected] Ask your senators to co-sponsor Senator Carl Levin's (D-MI) resolution condemning the Canadian seal hunt. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper protesting the seal hunt. Click here for suggested points you can make. Ask the designers who use seal fur and skin to stop providing a financial incentive for the seal hunt. Sign the fur-free pledge and join the more than 115,000 people who have pledged to help us tell the fashion industry that the animals need their fur more than we do. Support The HSUS' efforts to stop Canada's slaughter of seals. Tell everyone you know about the seal hunt, and ask them to sign our pledge to boycott Canadian seafood and contact the Canadian government to demand the hunt stop. One way to spread the word is to download a PDF of our ProtectSeals brochure and leave copies in public places. Or you can email our seal campaign videos to friends or link to them from your website. Wear our seal apparel and tell everyone why you're wearing it. There are shirts to suit every style: the ever-popular "Club Sandwiches Not Seals" polo shirtas well as the new "Stop the Seal Hunt—Boycott Canadian Seafood" short-sleeved tee and long-sleeved thermal henley. The HSUS has also collaborated with Wildlife Works, the wildlife conservation-driven apparel company, to create a line of shirts that tell the world to "Do Something" to protect seals. For each shirt sold on this web site, $10 goes to the Protect Seals campaign. To top it all off, wear our "Stop the Seal Hunt—Boycott Canadian Seafood" baseball cap. If jewelry is more your style, jewelry company Alex & Ani, which is a proud supporter of the ProtectSeals campaign, has produced a Save Our Seals expandable ring. Stick to it: Every time you attach one of our ProtectSeals stickers to a letter or package, you are spreadaing the word about the seal hunt. Sign up for Seal Watch and get the latest news from the ProtectSeals team as it documents the hunt. Download ProtectSeals badges, banners, and icons to use on your web page or when instant messaging. ****IMPORTANT KNOWLEDGE!!!***** """Fast Facts about Canada's Seal Hunt"" It's a cruel slaughter.Fully 95% of the harp seals killed over the past five years have been under three months of age. At the time of slaughter, many of these defenseless pups had not yet eaten their first solid food or taken their first swim—they literally had no escape from the "hunters."Video evidence clearly shows sealers routinely dragging conscious pups across the ice with boathooks, shooting seals and leaving them to suffer in agony, and even skinning seals alive.In 2001, an independent team of veterinary experts studied Canada's commercial seal hunt. Their report concluded that in 42% of the cases they examined, the seal did not show enough evidence of cranial injury to even guarantee unconsciousness at the time of skinning. It's a reckless cull.Over the past three years, nearly a million seal pups have been slaughtered for their fur.The last time sealers killed this many seals—in the 1950s and '60s—close to two-thirds of the harp seal population was wiped out.Scientists around the world have condemned the Canadian government's management plan for harp seals as reckless, unsustainable, and irresponsible. The seal hunt brings in very little money. Even in Newfoundland, where 90% of sealers live, income from sealing accounts for less than one-tenth of 1% of the province's economy.Sealers are fishermen who engage in several fisheries throughout the year, and sealing revenues account for only about one twentieth of their total incomes. Killing seals may harm fish stocks.About 3% of a harp seal's diet consists of commercially fished cod. However, harp seals also consume many significant predators of cod, including squid. Removing harp seals may mean an increase in cod predators.The Canadian government clearly states there is no evidence that killing harp seals will help fish stocks recover, and scientists have expressed concerns that culling seals may in fact impede the recovery of ground fish stocks. If you oppose the seal hunt, you're in good company.Polling shows 85% of Canadians believe seals under one year of age should be protected from hunting (Angus-Reid, 1997).In European Union countries where polling has been conducted—the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands—close to 80% of people who are aware of the Canadian seal hunt oppose it (MORI, 2002). Polling shows 79% of American voters oppose the Canadian seal hunt (Penn, Schoen & Berland, 2002).