“We’re wasting millions of tax dollars every year to prop up the violent, dying seal slaughter,” Anderson wrote in an email to The Canadian Press. “It’s no longer an issue of concern just for animal advocates but for any Canadian disgusted by government waste. And for the many Canadians who travel abroad, like me, it’s a huge embarrassment.”

Anderson filed three access requests with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

The hilarious twist to the story can be found in Ms. Anderson’s own tax history. Pamela was recently found to owe over $1 million dollars in unpaid taxes to the U.S government, and is facing legal battles regarding millions of dollars of unpaid fee’s owed to contractors who performed work on her multi-million dollar Hollywood home.

We here at Animal Wrongs want YOUR feedback on this story. Do you think that Pamela, although still considered a Canadian citizen while having not resided, worked, or paid taxes here in two decades has any right or claim to this information? What do you think of a proven tax evader coming out and criticizing government spending while she has multi-million dollar renovations done to her home?

Links:

CBC - http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/03/30/anderson-seal.html

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.

Newfoundland, a province whose people and culture are deeply entwined with nature, conservation and hunting has often denounced PETA’s radical and outlandish behaviors. PETA had earlier warned that it would protest the Canadian seal hunt during the Harper event and when they included St. John’s in their list of protests, several locals organized to greet them over the popular social networking site Facebook.

The pieing was in direct response to another pie incident that took place earlier in the week. On Monday a supporter of PETA hit Fisheries Minister Gail Shea in the face with a tofu cream pie during a press conference in Ontario. After the pieing Canadian MP Gerry Byrne pointed out that PETA has long since met the Criminal Code of Canada’s definition of a terrorist organization, and since they insist on committing violent acts and drawing attention to themselves that they should be prosecuted as such.

Several other violent attacks on public figures have taken place this year by radical groups, such as the Italian Prime Minister being hit in the face with a statue sustaining jaw injuries and broken teeth.

Preliminary research conducted by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans is now reporting the booming North Atlantic harp seal population at over 6 million animals. Check out our previous article on the booming seal populations here.

Links:
CBC News – http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/01/29/nl-seal-pie-012910.html
The Telegram – http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=322657&sc=79
CBC News – http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2010/01/25/burlington-shea-pie-100125.html

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.

(Click images to enlarge)

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.

To put this into perspective, Canada, a world leader in the management, consumption, and export of fish stocks only harvests 0.9 million metric tonnes annually, which includes both coasts (Atlantic and Pacific). The European Union, which has criticized the seal hunt and recently banned the import of  seal products, was identified by the World Wildlife Fund to be the main offender in a 70% increase of destructive cod by-catch. At the 2007 annual meeting of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization the WWF pushed for a cod recovery strategy that included setting a bycatch reduction target of 40 per cent for southern Grand Banks cod. The 40 per cent target was equivalent to a fishing mortality of 420 tonnes, which is estimated to be the maximum the population could withstand to still have some chance of recovery. Unfortunately, a total of 713 tonnes of bycatch was taken in 2008. Of that amount, the EU was responsible for 444 tonnes. These statistics do not account misreporting and illegal activity, which the EU, particularly Spain, has been accused of multiple times in the last 3 decades. Once again, to put this in perspective, â??lowâ? numbers for cod-consumption by harp seals suggest that this species makes up 4% of their diet â?? at the numbers provided, this comes out to 240,000 MT of cod consumed.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) recognize the sustainable use of wild animal populations to be a cornerstone of their health and conservation. They have placed the harp seal on their list of “Least Concern”. Despite accusations of being cruel and inhumane, the hunting methods Eastern Canadian sealers employ are effective and humane, as shown in veterinary studies carried out by members of Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (2002), the Independent Veterinary Working Group (2005), and the European Union’s own Food Safety Authority (2007). In the latest study on the effectiveness of the methods used in the seal hunt, the methods used were proven to be around 95% and 96% efficient, higher than any other harvest of animals in the world.

Seals provide essential income and wild food to rural people, such as fishermen, to diversify their living at a time of year when employment opportunities are extremely limited. Sealers have stated that their income from sealing can represent from 25-35% of their total income.

Seals are used for their fat, meat and organs as well as their hides. With heart disease being the number one killer in North America, there has been promising research done by scientists using the valves from seal hearts. This research which is aiming towards repairing damaged human hearts using seal heart valves has the potential to save millions of lives.

Links:

Wikipedia -Harp Seal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harp_Seal

Wikipedia -Seal Hunting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_hunting

Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans – Seal FAQ http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/seal-phoque/faq-eng.htm

Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans – Seal Facts http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/seal-phoque/reports-rapports/facts-faits/facts-faits2008-eng.htm

Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans – Seal Myths Debunked http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/seal-phoque/myth-eng.htm

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) – European Union Main Offender in Overfishing Cod http://wwf.ca/newsroom/?3600

IUCN Redlist â?? Harp Seal listing, species â??of least concernâ? http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/41671/0

What can you do?

- Sign the Petition for a Universal Declaration on the Ethical Harvest of Seals www.sealsonline.org

- Go to Facebook and join the group “I Support the Seal Hunt“

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.

What animal right protest groups have learned is that through cleverly worded propaganda messages, they can get the public to go running for their chequebooks. The animal rights groups use the Canadian seal hunt as an annual fund-raising event and their attacks fill up their coffers by using emotional pitches and half-truths. The fact is, these groups are actually making more money from the annual Atlantic seal hunt than the sealers themselves earn. Take for example the $77.5 million U.S. the International Fund For Animal Welfare raised last year – it’s easy to see that the seal hunt actually benefits the protest groups. Greenpeace pulls in 35 million dollars a year. PETA makes close to 31 million. HSUS earns a hefty 107 million a year. Fund raising, not protection of species, is often their prime objective.

Animal rights groups were very quick to see the economical gold mine in “Saving” Canadian seals. In 2007, it is estimated that animal rights groups earned nearly 300 million dollars worldwide protesting the seal hunt in that one year. This begs to question, how much money have the animal rights groups made since they started protesting the Canadian seal hunt in the 1970s? The figures are staggering. To put it into some perspective, the animal rights protest industry earns enough money each year to buy every last seal hunting vessel in Newfoundland – every single year.

In 2008 the sealers earned approximately 8.25 million dollars directly from the seal hunt. That is 250 thousand seals harvested at $33 (Canadian) each. The estimated earnings by the major players in the seal protest industry stands at 330 million dollars. For the sealers to earn their living, they require a ship and crew, expense money,and fuel; additionally, they need to be willing to take significant risks (four Canadian sealers died in 2008) for which they get paid very little.
The majority of Seal hunt protesters on the other hand, only require a computer, a chair and their hot coffee, for which they get paid their 330 million dollars.

The moral of the story here seems to be to get out of sealing and get into the seal protest business.

Animal rights protest groups argue against the Canadian seal hunt, a hunt for one of the most numerous animals on the planet, solely for the purpose of fund-raising. All the while, 16,938 species of animals that are actually in danger of extinction seem to be ignored.

Links:

http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/overview2.html