Free Republic

I WONDER how much time the average European spends thinking about how the delicious horse meat on the plate before them came to be there. I admit, I am only assuming horse meat is delicious. I have never had any. Horse meat is not exactly a common item on the menu, or in supermarkets, in these parts. In Europe, however, where public concern over the welfare of seals off Canada’s east coast has led to a EU-wide ban on the sale of imported seal products, horse meat is quite popular in many countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Holland, Poland,...

Canada’s Governor General began her Arctic tour by gutting a freshly slaughtered seal, pulling out its heart and eating it raw, according to media reports. Michaelle Jean, the Queen’s representative to the country, did it as a gesture of solidarity with the country’s beleaguered seal hunters, the reports said, adding that Jean expressed dismay that people would call the traditional hunting practices inhumane. After eating the heart during a stop in Nunavut’s Rankin Inlet, Jean wiped her blood-soaked fingers with a tissue.

The head of an anti-sealing group is upset that Halifax Regional Police aren’t pressing charges again a Metro Transit driver who stopped his bus, ran toward the protesters and pretended to attack a mock seal with an extendable baton. The incident, which happened at about 12:40 p.m. Saturday in front of the main entrance to the Public Gardens, has prompted the transit company to relieve the driver of his duties pending a full investigation. During that time, the driver will receive full pay. The director of the Atlantic Canadian Anti-Sealing Coalition said it’s "extremely alarming" that no charges have been...

Each year it's the same thing: A parade of wealthy celebrities swoop down on Canada's East Coast and accuse sealers of being meanies. This year Farley Mowat himself has joined the fight and is campaigning hard for a European ban on all seal products, which would effectively kill the hunt. The images are potent -- defenceless animals, grim-faced sealers wielding wickedly sharp gaffs. Check out "seal hunt" on a Google image search and you'll see. The Google seals are cute as buttons -- like every child's dream of a favourite puppy. Here's the problem: They aren't real. They're propaganda. Oh,...

A judge in Sydney, N.S., granted bail Sunday for two men arrested Saturday on an anti-sealing vessel in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Six other crewmembers remain in immigration custody for failing to comply with immigration rules. The two officers of the Dutch-registered vessel, the Farley Mowat, were taken into RCMP custody early Saturday following a confrontation with a coast guard ship on March 30. The men have been charged with approaching a seal hunt without a permit. Captain Alexander Cornelissen and first officer Peter Hammarstedt will be released on $5,000 bail, a spokeswoman with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society...

The captain and first officer of the anti-sealing ship the Farley Mowat were due to appear in court in Sydney, N.S., on Sunday, a day after their arrest off the west coast of Newfoundland. They have been charged with interfering with the seal hunt after a confrontation with a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker two weeks ago. Their vessel was boarded and seized Saturday in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by RCMP officers, working with officials from the federal Fisheries Department and the coast guard... Paul Watson of the international group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which owns the vessel, said its...

The Fisheries Minister defended the seizure of an anti-sealing group's ship Saturday, an act the group's leader called "an act of war." An armed RCMP team, working in a joint operation with Fisheries and the coast guard, boarded and seized the Sea Shepherd vessel Farley Mowat that was monitoring the annual seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence Saturday. Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Loyola Hearn had little sympathy for the protesters' tactics. "They are a bunch of money-sucking manipulators," said Mr. Hearn, "and their sole aim is to try to suck as much money out of the pockets...

OTTAWA -- The federal government has laid charges against the anti-sealing vessel Farley Mowat, which was involved in a confrontation with sealers near Cape Breton last weekend. Fisheries and Oceans announced Sunday an investigation into a high-seas confrontation between the Farley Mowat and sealers on Mar. 30 has ended in charges laid against the vessel's captain, Alexander Cornelissen, and first officer, Peter Hammarstedt. "The seal hunt is a humane, sustainable, and legal activity, and our government is committed to protecting the safety and security of sealers," said Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Loyola Hearn. "This guides our decisions on the...

ILES-DE-LA-MADELEINE, Que. — A routine rescue operation that turned into disaster in the waters of the North Atlantic sparked anger and frustration Sunday as grieving families grappled with the loss of four of their men. Three men died and one is lost at sea after L’Acadien II flipped over while it was under tow early Saturday from a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker. Of the six crew members aboard L’Acadien II, two were plucked alive from the icy waters by sealers on a boat that was following behind. The captain of the overturned trawler, Bruno Bourque, and sealers Gilles Leblanc and...

HALIFAX - A coast guard icebreaker and a ship owned by a militant conservation group collided in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Sunday as tension mounts over the annual seal hunt off Canada's East Coast. A spokesman for the federal Fisheries Department said Monday that the icebreaker was "grazed" twice by the Farley Mowat, a 54-metre vessel owned by the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. But the conservation group countered, saying its ship was rammed twice by the 98-metre icebreaker Des Groseilliers about 60 kilometres north of Cape Breton. "It rammed the stern end of the Farley Mowat and...

The crew of a coast guard icebreaker involved in a botched weekend tow operation off Cape Breton is giving a different account of what happened before at least three seal hunters died than a survivor and a witness, the Transport Safety Board said Tuesday. The disabled 12-metre trawler L'Acadien II was being towed by the Sir William Alexander early Saturday in the Gulf of St. Lawrence when the small boat hit an ice block and capsized, killing the three sealers and leaving a fourth presumed dead in icy waters. Two crew members on the icebreaker were monitoring the operation when...

ST-PIERRE - A militant environmental group opposed to the East Coast seal hunt was forced to flee the French islands of St-Pierre-Miquelon on Friday after angry fishermen cut the mooring lines of the group's flagship vessel. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society sparked outrage earlier this week when the group's leader, Paul Watson, said the recent deaths of three seal hunters north of Cape Breton was a tragedy, but the continued slaughter of seals "is an even greater tragedy." On Friday, Watson's vessel, the Farley Mowat, was confronted at the wharf by two dozen residents of St-Pierre, the capital of the...

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. (CP) - Another anti-sealing group that has been observing the controversial East Coast hunt has pulled out of Atlantic Canada. Activists with the Humane Society of the United States left the region on Sunday after weeks of documenting the kill in between sometimes-violent confrontations with local residents and hunt supporters. Spokeswoman Rebecca Aldworth said a day earlier that her group would stay until the hunt had finished. About 200 small sealing boats remain on the ice. But Aldworth said now that larger vessels have filled their quotas and ended their hunt, the group had seen everything they...

Early next week, hundreds of exhausted, filthy sealers will return home from the East Coast's largest seal cull, their boats laden with pelts, flippers and blubber. But few camera crews will be on the wharves of Newfoundland and Labrador to film their homecoming. The enduring image of Canada's 2006 seal hunt has already been captured. It belongs to Sir Paul McCartney, striding across an ice pan in snow boots and a red survival suit, then crouching beside a whitecoat on a frigid March afternoon. The former Beatle's star wattage also nabbed him a spot on Larry King Live, where he...

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...

Seal flippers were selling like hotcakes on the St. John's waterfront last week. "They couldn't keep them," says Joe Walsh, editorial page editor of The Telegram. "There were people who've never tried seal meat lining up for them." Contrary to what the animal rights people would have you believe, seals are killed not only for their pelts but for their oil and their meat -- about 60% of the meat is used. In fact, seal flippers are so popular in Newfoundland that service clubs hold annual "flipper dinners," says Walsh, adding: "I bought three dozen myself last year. I eat...

OTTAWA (Reuters) - A group of animal rights activists observing Canada's annual harp seal hunt were arrested on Sunday for getting too close to hunters killing the animals off the eastern coast, officials said. The six activists belong to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), which says the hunt is cruel and should be scrapped. This year, some 325,000 young seals will be shot and clubbed to death on ice floes, mainly for their pelts.In addition to six activists, a freelance cameraman working for Reuters Television was detained. They were on board a small craft near the Magdalen...

Sick, sick, sick. There is no other way to describe the grotesque, over-the-top spectacle put on in Ottawa this week by a past-her-prime French actress. Brigitte Bardot made her way from the land of berets and baguettes with a deluded sense that she would somehow meet with our prime minister and plead for Canada to stop the annual seal hunt. The PM didn't bite. Neither did the fisheries minister or anyone else with a full-time job that doesn't involve a flash and a notepad. So, Bardot was left to do what she does best, play for the cameras. And that's...

Writer Fabricated Boston Globe Story on Seal Hunt Fri Apr 15, 6:54 PM ET By Greg Frost BOSTON (Reuters) - A Boston Globe freelance writer fabricated large chunks of a story published this week, the newspaper said on Friday in the latest incident to embarrass the U.S. media. The Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Co., said it stopped using writer Barbara Stewart because of a story that ran on Wednesday about a seal hunt off Newfoundland -- a hunt, it turns out, that had not taken place. The Halifax, Nova Scotia-datelined article described in graphic detail...

A Boston Globe freelance writer fabricated large chunks of a story published this week, the newspaper said on Friday in the latest incident to embarrass the U.S. media. The Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Co., said it stopped using writer Barbara Stewart because of a story that ran on Wednesday about a seasonal hunt for baby seals off Newfoundland -- a hunt, it turns out, had not taken place. The story datelined Halifax, Nova Scotia described in graphic detail how the seal hunt began on Tuesday, with water turning red as hunters on some 300 boats...