Canada Spends Millions of Dollars on Money-Losing Baby Seal Hunt

[Omaha Steve]

Animal rights group obtains a government document revealing expenditures on the annual killing of young seals that is widely criticized as cruel and inhumane.



(Photo: Barcroft Media/Getty Images)

http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/03/08/canada-spends-millions-dollars-hunting-seals?cmpid=tpnews-eml-2016-03-12-StrangeBehaviors

MAR 8, 2016 David Kirby has been a professional journalist for 25 years. His third book, Death at Seaworld, was published in 2012.

The annual Canadian seal hunt is not only controversial and, many people believe, cruel; it is also an economic drain on the Canadian government, costing at least five times more than the export income generated from the killing, according to a document obtained by Humane Society International.

A 2009 document from the country’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans reveals that the government spends about 2.5 million Canadian dollars annually to monitor the slaughter of baby seals, which had an export value of only CA$500,000 in 2014, according to Humane Society International.

“It’s absurd,” said Rebecca Aldworth, executive director of Humane Society International/Canada, which submitted a public records request for the document. “The fact that the minimal level of monitoring that is conducted by the Canadian government exceeds the export value of this industry by $2 million is certainly a strong indication that this hunt should be ended for economic reasons alone.”

“We have a government that is well aware it’s pouring dollars into an economic sinkhole that will never recover,” Aldworth added. “But it continues to do so because, in the short term, it’s politically expedient as long as a few fishery unions and associations continue to support the slaughter.”

FULL story at link.

[HassleCat]

1. Welfare

Most countries do similar things for hunters, loggers, farmers, etc.