On May 8, 2009, we won a small victory for seals – The European Parliament voted to outlaw buying or selling products of cruel commercial seal slaughter in all 27 nations of the EU. This was made possible because of all of your support. The EU was one of the world’s top market for seal product, and with this now banned, we can only hope that the seal hunt’s end is imminently possible in the near future. Watch the video at the bottom of the Humane Society homepage where Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues, Rebecca Aldworth, takes us on a brief journey into the seal hunt story and tells how we can all do something about it.

Rebecca Aldworth, Direction of Canadian Wildlife Issues, HSUS.

If you happen to come upon this blog, you already know the seal hunt is WRONG. Here are some pictures from Rebecca Aldworth (HSI/Canada) who has been writing and documenting the atrocity on the ice. It is simply heartbreaking. Read her full entries here.

An excerpt:

“So often the suffering of the seals during this slaughter is viewed at a distance.

	“It takes a special kind of person to club and shoot helpless baby seals.” © HSI/Sanchez, 04-03-09

From the air, from thousands of feet, somehow the pain of the animals does not transmit properly.

You see them wriggling across the ice, blood trailing behind them. You see their mouths open in a silent scream through the camera lens.

But from the ice it is different. You hear their cries, you see them try to escape, you smell the blood and you feel their terror.

Yesterday, the ProtectSeals team travelled to the seal killing area by our boat (a small, rigid, inflatable vessel), documenting the slaughter from 30 meters away. We witnessed so many seals dying a horrible death, as sealers shot at the terrified babies, and then descended on the wounded, struggling animals with wooden bats.

I will never be able to forget the agonizing assault on one seal. The pup was in front of our boat, and a nearby sealing vessel approached. The pup sniffed the air as if sensing danger.

He looked around, and then the first bullet slammed into him. His scream could be heard all across the water. He tried to crawl away but another bullet ripped through his flesh.

His outraged cries echoed as a third and fourth and fifth bullet hit him. Finally, he dove into the water. He did not come back up. The sealers shrugged nonchalantly and moved on.

We looked around frantically for him but he did not surface. Likely, this baby seal would have bled to death slowly and painfully under the water, like tens of thousands of other seals that are “struck and lost” each year in this cruel slaughter.

I want the world to remember this brave seal. His cries of protest are echoing in my mind and I want them to sound across the world. I want everyone to hear as I did the mortal cries of a wounded baby seal who doesn’t understand why he is being hurt.

And hearing those cries, know as I do that this slaughter simply has to stop.”

Images of the bloody business (via Humane Society of the United States):

In one of the largest puppy mill raid in Tennessee ever, the Humane Society of the United States led a massive effort in ending the puppy business by Pine Bluff Kennels puppy mill operation. These dogs were here for one reason only—to breed more puppies. They live in horrific conditions, several dogs even laid dead in kennels.Watch the video of the rescue on the HSUS site

Join in the millions of people in the fight to end the puppy mill business by spreading the word, by donation, grab a t-shirt on the HSUS site, raise a banner by posting a badge on your blog or website.