seal hunt protest: less than success
the following is an excerpt from the toronto star's coverage of the national seal hunt protest that took place yesterday:
An attempt to mobilize Canadians against the annual East Coast seal hunt was met with locked doors, catcalls and scattered indifference today in several cities across the country. Representatives from an assortment of protest groups about 400 people in all assembled outside federal offices in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. They called for an end to what they say is the world's largest slaughter of marine mammals. The hunt starts later this month in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In Halifax, about 30 people unfurled banners, chanted and waved signs outside the empty constituency office of federal Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan. Letters of protest were slid under locked doors and a signed banner was left crumpled on the carpet after a security guard said the office was closed for March break.
In Toronto, about 150 placard-waving people turned out for a ``family friendly" protest in the city's downtown shopping district. In Vancouver, about 50 protesters marched in a circle outside a Fisheries Department office during the lunch hour. Today's protests were small and sedate when compared with the raucous heyday of the anti-sealing movement in the 1970s and early '80s. In 1977, the movement reached its peak when sex symbol Brigitte Bardot commanded world attention by cuddling up to young seals on the barren ice floes. A few years later, activists were arrested for spraying red dye on more than 200 seals. By the mid-1980s, the sealskin market collapsed when the European Commission banned products derived from the young harp seals known as whitecoats. Canada responded to the international pressure by banning the commercial hunt for whitecoats in 1987. Despite so many setbacks, the industry roared back to life in the mid-1990s as demand grew for seal fur in Europe's fashion houses.
Barry Crozier, spokesman for the Nova Scotia Humane Society, said ``the number doesn't indicate the interest or the sincerity of the people." He said the point of the Halifax protest was "to indicate that a large percentage of Maritimers, who live by the sea, are against the seal hunt."
An attempt to mobilize Canadians against the annual East Coast seal hunt was met with locked doors, catcalls and scattered indifference today in several cities across the country. Representatives from an assortment of protest groups about 400 people in all assembled outside federal offices in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. They called for an end to what they say is the world's largest slaughter of marine mammals. The hunt starts later this month in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In Halifax, about 30 people unfurled banners, chanted and waved signs outside the empty constituency office of federal Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan. Letters of protest were slid under locked doors and a signed banner was left crumpled on the carpet after a security guard said the office was closed for March break.
In Toronto, about 150 placard-waving people turned out for a ``family friendly" protest in the city's downtown shopping district. In Vancouver, about 50 protesters marched in a circle outside a Fisheries Department office during the lunch hour. Today's protests were small and sedate when compared with the raucous heyday of the anti-sealing movement in the 1970s and early '80s. In 1977, the movement reached its peak when sex symbol Brigitte Bardot commanded world attention by cuddling up to young seals on the barren ice floes. A few years later, activists were arrested for spraying red dye on more than 200 seals. By the mid-1980s, the sealskin market collapsed when the European Commission banned products derived from the young harp seals known as whitecoats. Canada responded to the international pressure by banning the commercial hunt for whitecoats in 1987. Despite so many setbacks, the industry roared back to life in the mid-1990s as demand grew for seal fur in Europe's fashion houses.
Barry Crozier, spokesman for the Nova Scotia Humane Society, said ``the number doesn't indicate the interest or the sincerity of the people." He said the point of the Halifax protest was "to indicate that a large percentage of Maritimers, who live by the sea, are against the seal hunt."
posted by jessalauren at 1:10 PM
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