Posted on 04/15/2006 7:37:12 AM PDT by Clive
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. (CP) - An animal rights group documenting the annual seal slaughter off southern Labrador pulled out Friday, saying protesters felt threatened after confrontations with local hunt supporters.
They left as the kill ended for most large vessels and at least one fleet of smaller sealing boats, when hunters filled about two-thirds of their quota.
A spokeswoman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare said a helicopter carrying anti-sealing activists was confronted a day earlier while trying to refuel in the Labrador community of Cartwright.
Regina Flores said angry residents surrounded their helicopter at two locations. They were eventually allowed to refuel but were told not to come back.
"Because we knew they wouldn't refuel us again, we couldn't go back out to continue to get footage because we wouldn't be able to get a source of fuel," Flores said Friday afternoon between flights in Halifax.
"I'm going to be on my way back to our headquarters in Ottawa to focus on reviewing the footage we did get in the first two days to look for any violations."
On Wednesday, the first day of the hunt on an area known as the Front, a helicopter carrying members of the Humane Society of the United States was also confronted in Cartwright.
Mayor Rosetta Holwell confirmed both incidents.
She said residents did not want outsiders interfering with a legal hunt.
"This is a Canadian-sanctioned hunt," Holwell said Friday.
"We elect politicians and they've made laws, and these people are coming here and telling us our laws our wrong."
Holwell said residents of Cartwright, many of whom are involved in the hunt, worried that protesters would endanger lives on the ice.
Sealers from Newfoundland and Labrador are allowed to kill 230,000 seals in this year's hunt on the Front - a vast area north of Newfoundland.
About 275 large sealing vessels and as many as 300 smaller vessels have been on the Front. Vessels larger than 11 metres long were told Friday evening their hunt was over. Fisheries officials said up to 200 small boats still had quota left.
The hunt on the Gulf of St. Lawrence ended last week after 91,000 seals were killed.
Both hunts have been marked with sometimes-violent clashes between protesters and sealers.
On Thursday, about 80 residents in the eastern Quebec community of Blanc-Sablon surrounded a small hotel where foreign journalists and members of the Humane Society of the United States were staying.
Quebec provincial police officers later escorted the 15 activists, reporters and photographers a nearby airport.
Humane society spokeswoman Rebecca Aldworth criticized police for not acting sooner.
"By the end of the afternoon, the damage had already been done," said Aldworth, who said her group planned on filing a complaint.
"Their refusal to bring us to the airport early in the day cost us our ability to go to the ice floes and document the hunt."
Aldworth was arrested along with several colleagues during the gulf hunt last month, and also claimed that a gulf sealing vessel had rammed a Zodiac inflatable boat carrying protesters and journalists.
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(((A well done Canadian ping)))
What does seal meat taste like? They're eating fish all day long. Is it salty?
From my experience, yes.
Texture similar to beef but salty like fish.
The young ones still nursing don't have the salty taste.
Codpeace Foundation
During a weekly meeting of the St. John's Rotary Club, on January 25, 1979, prominent businessmen Miller Ayre and John McGrath announced the formation of the Codpeace Foundation, a satirical anti-seal organization aimed at mocking groups such as the Greenpeace Foundation.
Miller and McGrath launched a widespread publicity campaign to raise awareness for what they called "the voiceless one - the noble cod." They published a humorous newsletter with pictures of the "symbolic cod family," and distributed bumper stickers and label buttons promoting the group.
The duo also produced an underwater video showing seals savaging cod fish and established the Cods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
And, the Codpeace Foundation is still remembered for sponsoring outlandish events such as the Presidential seal, and the kiss-a-cod contest and public kiss-off.
Thought maybe as a practical joke ..some of the hunters may have taken liberties with the protestors
Like binding them with duct tape...especially their arms legs and mouths...
Wrapped them up in white fur coats and threw them out onto the ice to thrash about a bit...
"I imagine fish get awfully tired of seafood. What are your thoughts, Hobson?" -Dudley Moore, Arthur
Good for the locals. Downside is that the wacko's will now come back to the States.
I would just love for once that the seal hunters took a few of these whackos and beat the crap out of them. Then they announce that the next time the protesters come back they might just be hacked up, their protection cannot be guaranteed.
Do it to the tree huggers, the anti-drilling groups, PETA and the ACLU. That solves many problems.
That is terrible, if true.
They should have run completely over it.
Awe, I'm sorry!
With that fake fur coat, I really thought you were a seal!
Did they cry "mama, mama"? *evil grin*
Jeez, we got Yankees up here again telling us what we can and can't do??
It's time we implemented some border control. It 's also time our
Customs guys carried firearms to keep out the riffraff...
"What does seal meat taste like?"
Chicken.
Chicken.
So they are only birds anyway.
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