A supporter of the radical animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals got her Just Desserts and a taste of the group’s own tactics Friday afternoon in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The seal-hunt protester who had been following the Prime Minister around the country with with a fellow PETA member dressed as a seal received a cold welcome and a pie in the face in response to her protest.
After arriving in the capital city, Emily Lavender, 21, of Vancouver Island, B.C. began to protest outside of the Delta Hotel, where the PM would be giving a speech along with several other government officials to the construction industry association. She was accompanied by who she thought was another PETA member in a seal costume, however it was in fact an intern at the local radio station who later removed the seal suit and started protesting against and denouncing PETA on camera.
Ms. Lavender, after being left alone with no support, eventually put on the costume herself where she was later joined by another costume wearing mascot. Salty Dog of the Newfoundland tourism and cultural ‘Downhome’ shop, greeted her with a cream pie in the face in front of a cheering and energetic local audience.
The animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, better known as PETA, has once again chosen the Canadian seal hunt as its main cash grabbing campaign this year. Although winter is just setting in, PETA has already armed its media arsenal with celebrity support, posters, full page ads and T-shirts in their latest campaign against the seasonal spring industry. The main spokesperson for the campaign is once again longtime PETA supporter Pamela Anderson who claims that she is speaking on behalf of disgusted Canadians.
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.
Despite what animal rights organizations and radical activists would have you believe, the harp seal is not an endangered animal nor is it’s population on the decline. Since the 1970’s the population of harp seals in the North Atlantic has not only increased, it has tripled. The last survey conducted by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans reported the harp seal population at a record high 5.8 million animals.
With worldwide attention being brought to the collapse of the North Atlantic fish stocks by the media and by documentaries such as ‘The End of the Line” , it is crucial to identify one of the largest consumers and threats to the recovery of the stocks. Each harp seal consumes between 1 and 1.4 metric tonnes of fish each year, and with the exploding population of 5.8 million animals that translates to a consumption of at least 6 million metric tonnes of fish each year. This means that now while the fish stocks are in crisis, the record breaking seal population is consuming more fish than ever before in recorded history, and is not only a threat to the fish, but to its own sustainability.
The total number of species known to be threatened stands at 16,938 according to Endangered Species International. Of the 44,838 species assessed using the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List criteria, 16,928 are listed as threatened with extinction, with millions of species still yet to be assessed. As a result, the number of threatened species is definitely much higher than the current estimate. Threatened species are those listed as Critically Endangered, Endangered, or Vulnerable.
According to Wikipedia, A vulnerable species is a species which is likely to become endangered unless the circumstances threatening its survival and reproduction improve. An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters. Organisms with a conservation status of critically endangered have an extremely high risk of becoming extinct in the wild or completely extinct in the immediate future.
With so many species of animals threatened today, why are the animal rights protest groups screaming about Canada’s seal hunt? The Canadian harp seal is one of the most abundant animals on the planet. According to the Canadian Government Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Canadian harp seal is listed as “least concerned”. Least Concern (LC) is an IUCN category assigned to extant species or lower taxa which have been evaluated but do not qualify for any other category. As such they do not qualify as threatened, nor Near Threatened. Many common species such as the Pigeon are assigned the Least Concern category. The harp seal population is healthy and abundant. The Northwest Atlantic harp seal population is currently estimated at 5.6 million animals, nearly triple the population seen in the 1970s, and has been at that level for the past ten years.
