Thanks to your hard work, the EU has announced a ban on all seal fur products. Hooray!

Fashion houses across the Europe will soon no longer be able to deal in the bloody skins of slaughtered baby seals, bludgeoned to death every year on the ice floes of Canada. This news comes after thousands of you sent letters to Stavros Dimas, the EU’s environment commissioner, demanding an end to the EU trade in these sick products. According to the Daily Mail, an import embargo is to be drawn up in the next few weeks, marking the beginning of the end to seal fur products in the EU.

Well done everyone!

You did it! After hearing from thousands of PETA supporters, Gucci has announced that it will not sell seal fur. However, they do still need to be told not to sell any fur at all, so go ahead and let them know that ALL fur is cruel and heartless.

Meanwhile, people from all over the world are protesting against the atrocity of the Canadian seal hunt, like this demonstration that took place outside Canada House in Trafalgar Square, London over the weekend.

Never afraid to show its anti-fur policy, Cosmopolitan has come out in support for PETA’s anti-seal hunt campaign. Being one of the most popular women’s glossies in the UK, I can’t help but naturally feel a little chuffed about this…

Image: Grey’s Anatomy Insider / Creative Commons

True to Morrissey style, he has given a bold statement against the Canadian seal slaughter. The statement appeared on a Morrissey Zine site True To You and reads:

“31 March 2008

Statement from Morrissey:

In late June the Montreal Symphony are hosting a TV Special to salute Buffy Sainte-Marie’s 50th year making music. I am honored to be asked to take part. I first bought a Buffy Sainte-Marie record when I was 12, and her music has always remained with me. In the 1960s, as a political activist, Buffy’s lyrics were fearless, and I’m very grateful for all the risks that she took.
I am also pleased to be asked to join the bill at the V Festival at the Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver, and also at Fort Calgary in Calgary.
However, as we all know, the psychologically and constitutionally sickening Canadian seal-kill has started and is once again in full-cry.
The horror of the Canadian seal-kill is untranslatable, and although I fully realize that highly concentrated evil exists in other countries - Japan’s dolphin slaughter, Iceland’s newly-revived whaling, the cat-skinning trade in Switzerland, and China with just about every injustice imaginable - there is something especially menacing about Canada’s seal-kill.
Loyola Sullivan (Canada’s Ambassador for Fisheries Conservation) is a man of glacial coldness who claims that the seal-kill is “humane” - a view he might alter if his own skull were cracked open with a spiked axe.
The fact that the seal-kill provides a livelihood for fishermen is an insultingly dim excuse for it to take place - after all, the German gas chambers of World War 2 also provided work for someone.
The seal-kill takes place to satisfy greed for fur-pelts, and this Canadian government is happy to drag the global image of its own country down, and make it a place that people such as I couldn’t bear to visit.

MORRISSEY, 29 March 2008.”

Don’tcha just love how ruthlessly honest he is? Keep it up Morrissey, stick up for the animals and don’t ever tame your words.

Image: Guardian Blog / Creative Commons

If the images of baby seals being bludgeoned to death on the ice floes of Canada aren’t sickening enough, imagine finding out that Gucci is financing the slaughter with seal fur boots. While most of the world watches on in horror at the unfolding carnage taking place right now, the Italian ‘fashion’ house is peddling the skins of the victims. Send them a letter via our site, check out the amazing new PETA front page, and see what Kasabian have been getting up to in the fight against this shocking cruelty.

Image: xoxkissablexox / Creative Commons

Now, I haven’t written much on the impending seal hunt as yet, so a slap on the wrist is needed. It isn’t because I have something against the seals, I promise. In fact I think they’re really cute and totally deserving of our attention at this vital time. So, without further ado I introduce you to our Stop the Bloody Seal Massacre campaign.

Depending on when you read this blog entry, the seal hunt will have either begun or will be starting in just a few hours. This is such a serious, hideous crime against nature, and hundreds of thousands of baby harp seals will be bludgeoned to death for the skins on their backs. This Daily Mail article tells of rules and regulations that have supposedly been implemented to ensure the annual slaughter is “humane, sustainable and responsible,” but how can ‘skinning seals’ and ‘humane’ be used within the same sentence? Get a grip, Canada.

Stop the Bloody Seal Massacre at PETA.org.uk.

Here’s a report from a PETA US Director, Michael McGraw, on what happened when Pamela Anderson filled in for Brigitte Bardot at the very important annual press conference to protest the Canadian seal slaughter:

“Brigitte Bardot asked Pamela to fill in for her today at her annual news conference to protest the Canadian seal slaughter (Brigitte is ill and couldn’t make it). Pam of course did an amazing job. We arrived at Bardot’s offices to a swarm of press. Pam read a 1-page statement about how, as a Canadian, she is appalled that the seal hunt continues…she described in graphic detail how the seals are beaten to death, and encouraged consumers to boycott designers who work with any fur. She then screened a graphic 2-minute video of the seal slaughter. The press were stunned.

“After a few words from the Bardot Foundation’s campaigns director, Bardot herself called and was put on speakerphone…in front of all of the press, she thanked Pamela for continuing on the campaign in her place, and in broken English called Pam her daughter and her Valentine. Pam was so moved; it was very sweet. Pam was then presented with a heart-shaped bouquet of roses and a personal letter from BB. Then off we went to the Canadian embassy (with AP reporter and photographer and about 15 paparazzi in tow) where Pamela asked to see the Canadian ambassador so she could personally deliver a letter from BB to him in protest of the seal slaughter. Photographers went wild. We were turned away at security, but it made a great photo and a shocked guard promised to hand over the letter for her.”

Both of these ladies have done tremendous things to help animals, and you can help too by signing the petition asking the Canadian government to stop the seal hunt.

Image: Javno / Creative Commons