Why Have a Day of Action for Grey Seals?
Slaughter of grey seal pups Hay Island 2008 photo HSI Canada Each year in Nova Scotia, hundreds of defenceless seal pups are brutally slaughtered in their nursery grounds by Nova Scotia fishermen armed with crude wooden bats and boxcutters. In past years, this slaughter was conducted in secret, with no DFO presence to ensure sealers were using so-called “humane harvesting methods”. Indeed, the majority of Nova Scotians were not even aware this atrocity was even happening. In 2008 Minister of Environment Mark Parent bowed to pressure from the fishing industry and DFO and authorized fishermen to enter upon Hay Island, part of the Scaterie Island Protected Wilderness Area in Cape Breton, and slaughter up to 2,500 grey seal pups. When fishermen left the island, 1,261 baby seals were dead and only 40 or so unmoulted pups remained on the island. This slaughter, however, was not conducted in secret. Despite DFO’s best efforts to keep them away, representations of Humane Society International
