Taking a stand against the Canadian seal hunt

To the editor:
    We’ve been thinking… what can we do? How can our voice be heard?
    We live on the New Brunswick, Canada border. We sit patiently in line passing through Canadian customs then go through an even rigorous interrogation coming home into the U.S. We do this because we shop in Woodstock and tour the Maritime Provinces. It’s a beautiful country. The people are hospitable. The exchange rate (for U.S. citizens) is not so great anymore, but that is neither here nor there when it comes to quality of products or attractions.
    One of our favorite restaurants is just south of Woodstock, overlooking the St. John River. We’ve been going there for 23 years. We made reservations for our upcoming anniversary.
    However, and this has nothing personal to do with the restaurant/owners, we have just cancelled. We just watched (again) video of the 2007 seal hunt on www.hsicanada.ca (a collaboration between Humane Society Intl/Canada and the Humane Society of U.S.), but it hit us harder than it has in the past. Perhaps it’s because hunt protesters are going to trial today and tomorrow (Oct. 18-19) for allegedly violating a 10 meter observation distance. Observation distance … vulnerable, defenseless animals are being brutally clubbed and shot and stabbed to death for nothing but $$$, and concerned people are on trial for merely filming and reporting it. We thought Canada was civilized. How wrong. It’s insane.
    Yes, cruelties go on in our country, in all countries. It goes on in neighborhood backyards, on the streets we drive. No one place can claim immunity from the senseless abuse of animals. But to allow a mass, brutal and barbaric slaughter of pup seals that cannot escape the monsters running at them with steel-hooked clubs, is nothing more than government sanctioned ‘genocide’.
    270,000 seals were permitted to be killed during the 2007 spring hunt. 270,000 — after one of the warmest winters/springs already killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them naturally.
    One has to wonder when Canada annihilates this species, what are they going to go after next? Intelligent human beings would see this future debacle coming. Intelligent human beings would see how wrong this is right now.
    So, until Canada regains its moral, common, civilized sense, our wallet will not be crossing the border.
Darlene Kenney
Linneus