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Help the Hollywood celebrities to end sickening seal hunt

The Province

Monday, March 14, 2005

With the East Coast sealing season upon us, Canadians once again are girding up for the usual frightening sight -- celebrities posing with newborn seal pups. This year it is TV's MacGyver, Richard Dean Anderson, who dropped in for an ice-floe photo op and a call for an international boycott of Canada's fish exports. The pictures have been sent to People magazine.

A Sea Shepherd Society ship is also slated to be back at the sealing grounds soon, sending out its pictures of the pups being dispatched by club, gaff and gun.

Media attention is one of the reasons the U.S. has had a ban on Canadian seal products since 1972 and the European Community has had a partial one since the early 1980s.

Over the past decade, Ottawa has managed quietly to ratchet up the seal-hunt quota. But recently opposition to the commercial hunt has been growing.

A global protest against the hunt will be held tomorrow. And, with tough-guy actor Sean Penn set to play longtime B.C. sealing opponent Paul Watson in a movie, the issue isn't about to drift away.

Canada faces the same old question: Is the taxpayer-subsidized livelihood of a handful of East Coast sealers worth a global black eye and the boycott of our fish exports, including B.C. salmon?

We have to agree with the sentiments on the T-shirt that celebrity heiress Paris Hilton has been seen sporting lately. It advises: "Club sandwiches, not seals."
© The Vancouver Province 2005