I didn’t know beans about Canada’s annual seal hunt until our new bloggress Britney Smears brought my attention to it this afternoon. The only time I’d ever really encountered it was when a girl in my sixth-grade class had a “save the harp seals” pin that she wore everywhere. It showed a cute, flufy, pure white baby seal. I think I saw that same seal (or a similar one — they all look alike to me…) in a PETA fundraising letter some years later. Lord knows why they were trying to get money out of me. I guess everything’s worth trying once.
Anyway, I spent five minutes today with my research assistant, trying to learn something about the seal hunt that wasn’t filtered through PETA’s lens. And here’s what turned up:
ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUP CHANGES BABY SEAL PICTURE ON WEBSITE
The Calgary Herald
May 28, 2009
Europe’s leading animal welfare organization has removed the image of a fluffy whitecoat baby seal from its website this week … The photograph was replaced by a photo of an older seal at the suggestion of one of Eurogroup for Animals’ 43 member groups, the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
The IFAW acknowledges it is sensitive to criticism about the use of the doe-eyed, helpless-looking baby whitecoats in anti-sealing campaigns.
The Canadian government and pro-sealing groups have for years accused animal rights activists of misleading the public by using whitecoats in fundraising campaigns even though Europe banned whitecoat skin imports, and Canada banned the hunting of them, in the 1980s …
“I don’t want people in general to be misled about anything,” said IFAW spokeswoman Barbara Slee, who contacted Eurogroup for Animals and successfully convinced its sister organization to remove the photo.
So let me get this straight: It’s been illegal to hunt the cute, fluffy, white baby seals since the 1980s? And Europe’s biggest animal rights group just got around to taking a picture of one of ‘em off its website?
That sucks. Thank goodness the International Fund for Animal Welfare objected.
Replacing images of lily-white baby seals with more realistic photos of older, fatter, uglier seals — the ones Canadians actually hunt — seems like a sensible thing to do.
Hurray for honesty!
Uh-oh. There’s more. There’s always more…
Slee defended, meanwhile, IFAW’s own extensive use of whitecoat images on its website, which includes the photograph of a white pup on the top of its home page under the headline Join Campaigns.
A visitor who clicks on the Save Baby Seals campaign will be taken to a page featuring three photographs across the top — a white baby pup with eyes seeming to plead for its life, next to a hunter about to club to death a seal that isn’t visible, followed by a photo of an older dark-skinned seal that is the target of the Canadian hunt.
The whitecoat’s image is directly under the headlines Donate Now and Save Animals.
Here’s a little visual re-cap of this.
The Eurogroup for Animals website last month (from Google’s cache):
The same website today, after the International Fund for Animal Welfare objected:
The International Fund for Animal Welfare website today:
Aside from the “oh-my-gosh” factor at the stupid, stupid hypocrisy, isn’t it silly that groups like this only focus on the photogenic animals to raise money? What about the plight of the atlantic wolffish? Or the endangered Aye-Aye? Or the big-headed turkey vulture? When the International Fund for Animal Welfare starts sending out fundraisers to save some of these ugly little fish-critters, let me know. I’ll be waiting.
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Those are some UGLY animals. If I ran into one in a dark alley, I’d definitely club it to death.
Very nice detective work. Of course the reason that they only display images of baby seals and similar looking animals is because if you drop a bunch of people into the African savannah, the lions would ONLY eat the cute humans.
Right?
Better yet, Irish, has anyone seen those nature shows where the mama polar bear pounces on and kills a cute little baby seal so she can feed it to the cute little baby polar bear? Who’s side are we supposed to be on?
Oversneer, you need a better, non-hypocritical research assistant!
I’ve been wondering that for a while now too, TrojanPrincess. Exactly why are humans the only predators doing harm??
This points up the foundation of liberal do-gooderism: What FEELS “right”, not what actually gets results or accomplishes anything. These guys didn’t want to take down the cutesy-poo photos precisely BECAUSE they know the doe-eyed babies elicit a strong emotional response. Yeah, yeah, advertising and PR are largely about emotional responses (otherwise we’d all only buy cars that got great mileage and sports cars would be a thing of the past). But in cases like this one, the truth gets a huge middle finger, because SNIFF, WAAAHHH, it FEELS nice to coo over the Dondi seals and hand over some cash. You FEEL like you’ve struck a blow, and you have–to your bank balance.
Long time reader, first time poster.
Thank you,
. The GG was doing what a visiting dignitary *should* do by participating in and giving verbal support to a traditional, and yes, sustainable way of life in the arctic. She was showing respect for both her Inuit hosts AND the seal. EU rules exempt the traditional aboriginal hunt form any ban already, so the fuss from the EU over the GGs dinner has been a little confusing. One of our larger newspapers is running a series on EU food cruelty in response (they started with the snail and yes, it is very tongue in cheek). PETA isn’t the only hypocrite here. Never mind the foi gras and frog’s legs – they still kill bulls in the ring in parts of the EU for freaking entertainment (and subsequent stewing). I don’t have a real problem with that since it seems like a bull might prefer to go down fighting than be led to the slaughterhouse, but it does seem hypocritical to permit that to happen while picking on the hunt of a (non-threatened species of) animal elsewhere. Is it because even adult seals look cute in pictures while bulls do not?
DefamerDeceiver for the posts about the Governor General, the seal hunt, the deceptive use of the whitecoat baby seals by activists, and for your ongoing coverage of PETA. While I would have had problems eating raw heart myself (I’m squeamish about parasites), I am one of many, many Canadians who found the GGs actions to be both appropriate (good etiquette) and dignified. From the comments in our own media, it looks like most of us here in Canuckistan are proud of the GG, which is more than I can say for PETAvist Pam Anderson or the vast majority of our actual elected officialsIn a bizarre move, PETA has announced a boycott on Canadian maple syrup as a protest to the seal hunt. While my first gut response to this was “all the more for me!”, I can’t help wondering why maple syrup? They have a problem with Newfoundlanders (and apparently with northern Inuit) killing seals, so they pick on the largely Quebecois/Ontarioan tree vampires? And the connection is… what exactly? And why kick off the campaign in a region of the USA where they produce their own syrup and thus won’t be buying much of the Canuck stuff anyhow? Imported maple syrup is a luxury item and targeting sales of it during a recession and when the cost is likely going to be high due to the rising loonie seems a bit silly, unless they picked syrup because export sales are likely to be slow anyhow and give them an easy “victory” to claim? I notice that they didn’t try for Canuck oil, electricity or durum semolina
Maybe we can get them to announce a boycott of Pamela Anderson next?
I am an urban Canuck and environmental scientist. I don’t hunt for food myself, but I do eat meat and I don’t see anything wrong with wearing the byproducts of what I eat (no imported raccoon-dog fur, though – the cruelty of live skinning is about all that I agree with PETA on). I despise trophy hunting (very bad for the species gene pool) and the (illegal) taking of bears for gall bladders, but I sure don’t have a problem with people who hunt and kill their own meat, so long as they are not putting pressure on a species which is threatened. I’d be a flaming hypocrite if I said ‘no’ to sustainable hunting while munching on cow and chicken and an idiot if I didn’t wholeheartedly support the humane harvest of species where the populations are getting out of hand because we killed off or scared their natural predators. Yeah, Canada Goose and white-tailed deer, this means YOU. Hunters these days do a hell of a lot more to preserve wildlife (enlightened self-interest) through habitat preservation than PETA urbanites do. Heck, so do maple syrup producers, since a lot of wildlife lives in the sugar bush. PETA must be anti-bird, anti-fox and anti-squirrel!
Anyhow thanks again, and thanks to anyone who put up with reading the long post.
I didnt think the big headed turkey vulture is ugly. I didnt think it was cute but it isnt hideous.
The aye-aye is kind of cute, in a gargoyle sort of way.
Man. I don’t care how ugly they get I could never club an animal to death. I’m sorry, if you do that’s cool. You gotta do, what you gotta do, but not me, no way. I’d push democrats, lefties, or Huffington Post commenting hippies down a flight of stairs any day of the week if I thought I’d get away with it. But never the animal clubbing thing. Sorry guys.
to the Petards: “Every great cause starts as a movement, becomes a business and ends as a racket.” I can’t credit quote – don’t know who said it but this is why I HATE all do good organizations….
*uck Peta.
http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/News+flash+Inuit+more+risk+than+seals/1641896/story.html
snippet: “There are 10 million seals in Canada and 50,000 Inuit. Seals outnumber Inuit by 200 to one. In the bigger picture, given the intolerance of the animal rights lobby, perhaps the Inuit deserve to be considered more at risk than the seals.”
Pasta, as a card-carrying right-wing extremist, I have lists of LISTS of people I’d club if given a chance. Animals rate pretty low, unless they’re spiders. As much as I hates me some spiders, I’d pound PETArds into a thin red paste, THEN deal with the arachnids. Because at least spiders don’t yammer at you.
Beige, I too am a bible loving, gun toting crazy right wringer and I could never envision harming animals. My husband grew up hunting and he relies on his hunting days to stock our freezer with deer meat, but I still cannot bring myself to eating it.
Our neighbors dog ran away and was found two days later with a rope around his neck and a gun shot to the head, dumped on the side of the road. People that hurt animals infuriate me. That said, bring me some crazy democrat and I will gladly help them off of the cliff. Animals at least bring me comfort and the warm fuzzy feeling.
Cat, my in-laws live in Ontario and I’ll happily load as much Canadian maple syrup into my trunk as U.S. Customs allows. And then give a toast to PeTA when I eat my yummy, delicious waffles.
Pamela Anderson campaigning for anything “ecological” is pretty rich considering so many of her body parts aren’t bio-degradable.
Angry Army Wife:
I’m confused. You husband brings you fresh organic free-range meat and you won’t eat it? Do you eat meat from a store? – i.e. meat that has been raised in a factory environment and killed by someone you don’t know?
Nice post Cat. As for agreeing with PETA about live skinning, well you’d be hard pressed to find anyone sane who says that skinning an animal alive is anything less than horrific and sick. I just don’t believe anything that PETA says. They prey on people’s readiness to believe outrageous stories about remote and distant cultures. They are also not above paying people to torment animals on video so they can defame those people.
Check this report:http://www.furcommission.com/news/newsC7.htm
i would never hurt an animal and i think the seal hunt is wrong but i don’t like or agree with PeTA. and angry army wife.. that made me so sad to hear about your neighbors dog.. how awful. anyone that could do that is a monster.. did they ever find the person?? people are just sick.
A baby seal walks into a bar and asks for a Canadian Club on the rocks. . .
no, they have not found the sicko yet and there is a nice reward. It breaks my heart to see things like this done to animals.
i hope they do and it breaks my heart as well. there’s no excuse to do that to an animal.. the kind of world we live in today is so scary and sad.
Angry army wife, think I’d be a hypocrite if I were to skin that guy alive and then mount his head on the wall for my trophy?
@Matt: HAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA!!
@ Jolly Green Midget – hell no! I will help you