....helpless....

Hi everyone, hope you had a nice weekend. I woke up this morning to an urgent message in my e-mail inbox.

It's almost time once again for the annual seal hunt in Canada. In the coming weeks, hundreds of thousands of baby harp seals will be beaten and stabbed with sharp hooks, and some will even be skinned alive.

Most of them will be less than 3 months old, and many will still be in their first weeks of life. The animals are so young and innocent that they will lie on the ice as their attackers approach. Even if they know that they should flee, their motor skills aren't yet developed enough to do so. They have no chance of escaping to the safety of the water. The carnage begins as the seals have their heads bashed in with clubs. Still conscious, they will be dragged across the ice with boat hooks. Then these sensitive, intelligent animals will be skinned, sometimes while they are still alive. The sealers will take their fur but leave the seals' bodies on the ice to rot.

I realize that this is not the most cheerful topic for a blog post, but as you know, animal rights and welfare is a passion of mine, and it's not a cheerful subject. This practice would end if there was no longer a demand for baby seal fur coats and other goods. In the interim, I'm hoping that the Canadian government will one day respond to the worldwide pleas and will no longer sanction this brutal practice. Please join me in signing a petition and speaking for those who have no voice.