Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Hsus Petitions U.S. Government To Protect Fur Seals

Close Up Reports

Since the 1960s, The Humane Society of the United States has vigorously protested this brutal clubbing of the North Pacific fur seals. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, HSUS investigator Frank McMahon repeatedly documented this slaughter and worked with government officials and others to stop it. In 1980, HSUS chief investigator Frantz Dantzler returned to continue the work. Unhappily, these constant efforts, though successful in calling this brutal activity to the attention of the American public, failed to achieve our goal of bringing the Pribilof "harvest" to an end.

Now, we have undertaken a different strategy: on Thursday, January …

The Canadian Harp Seal Hunt: A Moral Assessment, L. W. Sumner

Hunting Collection

The population of the harp seal, Pagophilus groenlandicus, is divided into three distinct breeding groups, which are centered on the White Sea, the Greenland Sea, and the northwest Atlantic. The last of these three populations, by far the largest, summers in the Arctic waters of Canada and west Greenland. In the autumn the animals in this group begin to migrate southward ahead of the advancing ice pack. By late February or early March, the females reach the breeding grounds off the coast of Newfoundland-Labrador (the Front) and near the Magdalen Islands (the Gulf). They then haul themselves out onto the …

Hsus Opposes Cruel Clubbing Of Harp Seal Pups

Close Up Reports

World opinion, including that of many Canadians, has long been against the annual so-called "seal harvest" on the ice floes off the coast of Newfoundland. Yet the Canadian bureaucrats refuse to budge.

As spring approaches, protests are being raised throughout the world to end this barbaric practice. At the same time the Canadian government is attempting to convince the world that the clubbing is both "humane" and necessary.