Bostonsharepointug – More than a hundreds of seals fell to slaughter each year, especially in Canada the home of Thousands of seals and their babies. First hunt began at least 4.000 years ago, based on archeological evidences indicated that the Native Americans and the first people in Canada are the first ever seal hunters. By Tradition of Inuit diet consists of fishes, whales, and seals. Seal meat was so precious, because it contains a well amount of fat, proteins and vitamins, even the pelts were used as the source of their warmth. 

Mainly Harp Seals are the target of the commercial seal hunting, and the secondary target are hooded seals. More than 96% of harp seals killed are still three months old. The hunting ground itself were mainly occurs in the ice habitats of Canada’s East Coast and were divided by two areas. First in the gulf of St. Lawrence ( on the west side of Newfoundland and east side of Magdalen Islands) and the “Front” The Northeast part of Newfoundland. 

With the totals of 6.000 fishermen are actively hunting seals each year, and for the record seal hunting only takes part in a small portion of their annual incomes, and even larger portions came from fisheries. According to The Canadian Marine Mammal Regulations, Seal hunters may kill with wooden clubs, Hakapiks ( Made from large Ice Pick) and fire weapons. The methods are differs according to the hunting grounds, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence clubs and hakapiks are the weapon of choice, and in the “Front” guns are the main weapon. 

The killings are inevitably cruel, the hunters usually shoot the seals from a moving boat and most of the shots don’t kill the seals instantly but rather only wounding them. Canada sealskin processing plant deducts 2 $ for each bullet hole they find on the seal, as a result seals that wounded from the gunshots were often left in suffering, and die slowly in agonizing pain. 

More than 1 million seals have been killed in the past 5 years. This level of slaughtery is the highest ever recorded in a half of a century. In the 50’s and 60’s the Harp Seals were killed at the same level, and the populations were reduced to two-thirds. Those numbers are only a calculation, and believed to be much higher than reported. 

The seals mainly were used to produce clothes and other items, and even the oil and penises were used as aphrodisiac and sold in Asian markets. The meat itself has no use, and usually left to rot. Because of this reason, the seal slaughter usually called a fur hunt. 

In the 1980’s, The European Union Banned the Imports of Seal skins, thus the number of seals were decreased dramatically and the Harp seal numbers are recovered, but the paradise of Harp seals only lasted for a decade. In the 1990’s, Canadian Government announced massive subsidiaries for the hunts. As a result, more than 1 millions seal pups were killed in the timespan of 5 years.