Canada seal cull to get under way


Canada's annual harp seal hunt is getting underway amid furious debate over the controversial cull.
Up to 325,000 young seal pups could be killed in the coming weeks.

Celebrities such as former Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife have joined animal rights groups in condemning the cull as barbaric and unnecessary.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada was victim of an "international propaganda campaign", and insisted the cull would be carried out humanely.

The Canadian government insists the cull is necessary to control seal numbers - saying the seal population is now almost six million, nearly triple the level of the 1970s.


surely there must be a more humane way

They don't seem to care about bear baiting, nor the moose and deer culls that go on, so why about some gormless seal?

Carpet bomb 'em? At least the seals would die quickly and painlessly.


NC Penguin

Seals are like rodents .. serve no purpose whatsover ....
why not cull them ...

Read the first post. That is exactly what Canada is doing.

Seals are not like rodents. Seals are no way as smart as rats. <where's the smilie that is giving the finger?>


NC Penguin

Dibs on Heidi Klum after the seal cull!

Why should seals be any different than cows? Don't we kill millions of cows every year?

Unless a species is endangered, I just don't see why anyone who eats meat should care about cuddly seals any more than cows and sheep (as long as the method is "humane").

exactly....my whole point

Clubbing any animal especially the females (while the little ones are looking on) and then leaving them to die is not "humane"!

Seals are not human......

Every creature both great and small deserves to be treated with respect and dignity!

I will tell all the fishermen that ...

That would be great ray. I can only handle so many protests at the same time!

Your OP didn't mention what methods are used ... so how do they do it?

I was referring only to the notion of killing seals as compared to any other animals (which most people don't seem to care about).

Personally I don't much like the idea of killing any animals (although I do eat fish and chicken so I'm not perfect). I have read articles by conservationists that describe how when species overrun an area to the point where either the local ecology is destroyed or there are insufficient resources to support them, it's almost kinder to conduct a humane cull.