Kiwis urged to boycott travel to Canada
A ‘seal slaughter’ and march will be staged in Christchurch as part of a worldwide call for an international boycott of
Canada unless it immediately stops clubbing to death 320,000 harp and hooded seals. The planned mass slaughter is the
latest phase of Canada’s barbaric annual seal slaughter programme.
National animal advocacy organisation SAFE is calling for New Zealand travel agencies to use their industry influence to
support the international boycott by encouraging New Zealanders to avoid travelling to Canada. Activists will today
march to inner-city travel agencies where they will deliver a letter seeking each agency’s support, while a ‘seal
slaughter’ is enacted outside.
“The demonstration coincides with the first day of the second and largest phase of the seal kill on the Labrador Front
in the Newfoundland region. During the first phase last week, it was estimated over 90,000 seal pups were brutally
clubbed to death using hooked pick axes. A former SAFE employee Lisa Shalom, now working for the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society, was physcially assaulted by the sealers while trying to film the slaughter with ten other marine
activists”, said SAFE spokesperson Sacha Dowell.
“We understand the majority of the seals killed were less than twelve weeks old. Many were skinned alive by sealers
heavily subsidised by the Canadian government. The bodies and skins are used to make fur coats and Asian aphrodisiacs.”
Harp seal populations in Atlantic Canada were once estimated at around 24 million but pollution, global warming and
destruction of the marine ecosystem has depleted seal numbers by 80 per cent. Marine conservationists fear the latest
slaughter will have a catastrophic effect on the remaining seal population.
SAFE activists will meet at 3 pm today in Cashel Mall, Christchurch.