Ellen came out and said “Seal hunting is one of the most atrocious and inhumane acts against animals allowed by any government. Canada is allowing the slaughter of a record number of seals in their 2011 hunting season, which is going on right now. The seals are often younger than 3 months old.” DeGeneres then continued, “This has to stop. To my friends and fans in Canada: please help put a stop to this.”

Although Ellen clearly has a love for animals, a subject which she devotes large portions of her show to discussing, we here at animal wrongs can’t help but wonder if Ellen also has some sort of dislike towards Newfoundlanders? On her 90′s sitcom show, one episode featured a character who trying to make a career at stand-up comedy in Canada made several jokes about Newfoundlanders, including coming straight out and saying “It’s so true. Those Newfies are so stupid…”.

First she calls them stupid, then she attacks one of their traditions and industries. We’d like to know what you readers think.

Links:

Ellen  - Warner Bros. Official Webpage about the Seal Hunt

CANADIAN BROADCAST STANDARDS COUNCIL – Complaint on Newfoundland insulting Episode

Despite all the joyous holiday celebrations taking place around the world it seems the propagandists and spin doctors of the animal rights movement took no time off. PETA once again did not fail to make some headlines again this year in their effort to raise last minute funds in the 2010 fiscal year. This year their target is holiday related, the Christmas card of a well-known and well respected Canadian politician.

The Christmas card in question features a picture of liberal politician Justin Trudeau and his family, bundled together under a fur blanket and wearing Canada goose down jackets with fur trim.

PETA argues that the picture is an ugly portrait of death and the suffering of animals, which is contradictory to the messages of “love” and “peace on earth” which are associated with the holidays. The majority of responses coming from the general public suggest that Trudeau is simply being a Canadian politician and promoting canadian history (which was founded by the Northern fur trades) and products, or that they believe it was just a Christmas card with fur used to help portray the winter them and that there isn’t any ulterior motive.

PETA Vice-President Dan Matthews appeared on the show ‘Power and Politics’ on CBC debating Alan Herscovici, of the Fur Institute of Canada. Matthews refered to the card very little and instead chose to use most of his airtime to denounce the use of fur in general. xxx called out Matthews several times for using outdated and false information, and pointed out the PETA is group aimed at stopping the use of animals in every aspect, including pets, dairy production, etc. Herscovici also stated that Canada is leading the way for humane and ethical trapping standards, and that the fur industry works closely with veternarians in developing their animal welfare standards and practices. Matthews refused to acknowledge the majoprity of Herscovici’s points, and in true animal rights spokesman fashion chose to focus mainly on speaking in several short, general soundbites.

The jackets themselves are a well-known product of an internationally regarded Canadian company, Canada Goose.

Links:

Video: CBC’s Power and Politics – PETA Debates Fur Institute of Canada on Justin Trudeau’s Christmas Card (Video is from 22:00 min to 37:00 min)

The Irish Coursing Club, a century old greyhound sporting club, and Bookmaker Boylesports raised money at its events this past month towards the relief efforts being made in Haiti. The victims of the earthquake, however must have seemed insignificant to the self-righteous animal rights activists. Members of the misleadingly titled animal rights group, the Irish Council Against Bloodsports protested against the source of the donation, and ultimately prevented it from ever reaching Haiti.

Group picture of the Fethard Coursing Club

Coursing, is a traditional and ancient sport in Ireland which consists of tracking wild hare using greyhounds, where the skill of the dogs are compared for competition. The Irish Coursing Club, not unlike the North American conservation group Ducks Unlimited, is responsible for bringing many reforms to the sport in terms of animal welfare, and has helped changed it into the harmless, humane and death-free sport that it is today. The club enforces rules such as a limited season to ensure that the hare is undisturbed during the breeding season, releasing all hares back unharmed, and the muzzling of all competing greyhounds. The club also takes steps to ensure that the hare population is protected from predators and from poachers, and the end result of the conservation and preservation policies of the Irish is the increase of the wild hare population.

The Irish Council Against Blood Sports contacted the charity, Goal, to â??alert themâ? to the source of the donation. They described the coursing event that was held as a fundraiser as a â??cruelty festâ? and said blood sports-related fundraisers were â??thinly-disguised public relations exercises designed to try and gain brownie points for those involved in causing suffering and death to animalsâ?.

An official at Goal subsequently contact Boylesports to say the charity did not wish to be associated with coursing and was told: â??no problemâ?.

Despite turning down the donation, when contacted by The Irish Times, the charityâ??s head of fundraising said that the charity would, in fact, be happy to accept the donation because she didnâ??t see â??why people in Haiti should sufferâ? just because some people objected to certain activities. She said the Irish Council Against Blood Sports had promised â??more callsâ? and she was â??picturing a deluge of phone calls from irate members of the publicâ?.

T chief executive of the Irish Coursing Club, expressed disappointment and said Goal was dealing with â??a desperate situation in Haitiâ?. He called on the Irish Council Against Blood Sports to replace the donation lost to Goal.

After the decline in donation, Boylesports redirected its charitable donation to another charity, an animal welfare organization, Retired Greyhound Trust, which provides for unwanted dogs.

Despite its suggestive name which makes you think of brutal person versus person fighting equivalent to gladiator matches, The Irish Council of Bloodsports is an animal rights organization whose soul purpose is to campaign against hunting and the sport of coursing in Ireland.

Links:
The Irish Times – http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0205/1224263813877.html
Irish Coursing Club – http://www.irishcoursingclub.ie/
Irish Council Against Bloodsports – http://www.banbloodsports.com/

Other celebrities supporting this campaign include Playboy porn stars Holly Madison and Jayde Nicole, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, and ‘Jackass’ star Steve-O, who in his latest film featured a person defecating in a helmet that someone was wearing. The rest of the celebrities -  including Kelly Osbourne and Sarah McLachlan – can be found on PETA’s website. The question we asked ourselves here at Animal Wrongs was, what do the individuals featured in this campaign have in common? The answer was simple: they are celebrities, porn stars, singers and actors – not experts.

So who made Pamela Anderson an expert on the humane standards of animal use? The most recent information we can find on Pamela, short of her involvement with the campaign, is that she is currently facing allegations of being broke. It is reported that she owes over a quarter of a million dollars in back taxes, and over 1.1 million to at least 5 different construction companies who have filed claim against her, after renovating her Malibu home and going unpaid. Currently living in a trailer park for the rich, rumor has it that Anderson’s renovation job has gone over budget and that she will be forced to sell her home due to lack of funds. Anderson claims that she is simply choosing to stay in the trailer park because she enjoys it and because she met her current boyfriend nearby.

Anderson has been a long time supporter of PETA, and most recently campaigned in public for their Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaign, against fast-food giant Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Who can forget the ridiculous ads of the Colonel watching as men in chicken suits are beaten and given drugs by what looks like a warden in a prison camp? The campaign forced Canadian KFC chains to respond by offering a vegetarian chicken burger on their menu, which seems hypocritical to those of us here at Animal Wrongs unless the C is dual purpose and also stands for Carrots. Pamela announced on TV that she is proud of the Canadian chains for making a ‘true Canadian initiative’, and stating that we, Canadians, are an environmentally concerned and animal loving people. Although this is mostly true, I wonder if the Canadian starlet who has lived out the majority of her life in California is aware that this country, Canada, is one founded on hunting, trapping, and fur trading. Has she ever heard of the Hudson’s Bay Company? One of the most stressed arguments in PETA’s accusations of cruelty against KFC is that hormonal growth treatments given to chickens make them top heavy and off-balance. Given their choice in a spokeswoman, we here at AW once again find the irony hilarious. During her career as a model and actress, Pamela Anderson has admitted to having several breast augmentation surgeries. These enhancements have not only made the actress more ‘top-heavy’ but also support the use of animal testing for cosmetic and non-crucial medical use. Breast implants have been, and still require testing on animals, ranging from dogs, to pigs, to rabbits to test the effects and responses they invoke within living tissue.

This isn’t Pamela’s first hypocritical stance on the use of animals. Despite her frequent declarations of veganism, Pamela Anderson only recently decided to stop wearing sheepskin boots. Caught in thousands of pictures going about her days in California sporting Uggs (sheepskin boots), and being a self-admitted fan of the footwear Pamela claims to only have just discovered that the boots were an animal product. Who would have guessed that a clothing line advertising their high quality sheep and emu skin would be animal products? Her choice in footwear is not the only thing we wish to bring under fire. Isn’t a vegan, especially a PETA spokesperson supposed to support a vegan diet? At Pamela’s latest wedding (She has had three) to Rick Salomon, who you may know as the more masculine counterpart in the Paris Hilton sex tape, the 40 guests enjoyed a menu that featured pigs in a blanket, macaroni and cheese, and tuna and lobster tacos.

The other key spokesperson of PETA’s campaign includes clothing designer Richie Rich. Rich designed the simple white T-shirts sported by the celebrities in each of the ads, featuring an image of a whitecoat harp seal, which is not hunted – because its illegal to do so. What’s Richie’s history with animal science?  He doesn’t have one. His background is one of a “club kid” – A group of young New York City club personalities led by Michael Alig and James St. James in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This group was notable for their outrageous costumes and extensive drug use — in particular, ecstasy, ketamine, and heroin.

The Vice President of PETA, Dan Matthews, appeared for interviews with the stars, and falsely made the claims that newborn seals still covered in their mothers afterbirth are hunted due to softer skins and furs, which is both illegal and not physically feasible.

Now we can’t single out Pamela for being the only celebrity taking up this cause without a clue. In the most recently publicized celebrity visit, Canada was ‘treated’ to a visit from Sir Paul McCartney and his ex-wife Heather Mills. After being invited by Newfoundland Premiere Danny Williams on Larry King Live, to come to Newfoundland and observe the hunt, Paul, who was in Prince Edward Island, argued with the Premiere on live television that he was indeed in Newfoundland. Shortly after their trip, Heather Mills, accused Paul of abuse and motioned for divorce, taking him for $50 million, and requesting an additional $19,000 a day for living expenses. Ms. Mills was also a supporter of the PETA campaign to stop giving school children cows milk, with human breast milk being one of the alternatives.

Other supporters of PETA’s campaign to stop the seal hunt, include Kelly Osbourne, heir to the royalties of the singing Price of Darkness, who became infamous after biting off the head of a live bat on stage. Steve-O, a man who has his own face tattooed on his back and who writes about vegan-ism on his personal website is one of the founders of the “Jackass” series, movies which depict young men performing horrid and culturally unacceptable acts, such as defecating on another persons face, freezing one mans testicles to a block of ice and ripping them off, and masturbating and ingesting the semen of a horse. Not exactly the most respectable members of society, roles models, or credible spokespersons for humane animal treatment.