Former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson wants to save the seals from the annual hunt on Canada’s East Coast.
The Canadian-born actress has joined other celebrities who are taking part in a new ad campaign by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
Anderson, who was in town to launch her animal-friendly clothing line at Fashion Week, visited the Ontario provincial legislature on Friday to introduce the new ads.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The ads — showing celebrities wearing white T-shirts with a drawing of a baby seal — also feature singers Sarah McLachlan and Kelly Osborne, actresses Jennie Garth and Jorja Fox, and gossip blogger Perez Hilton, among others.
Anderson’s ad reads: “What do I have in common with Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and the Dalai Lama? We all oppose the massacre of baby seals. It’s time to end Canada’s shameful slaughter.”
Outside the Ontario legislature building, the 52-year-old Anderson cuddled a seal mascot and told supporters that she wanted to prevent the “barbaric massacre” of seals.
“When I travel all over the world, the Canadian seal hunt is a huge issue that people talk to me about,” she said. “So I’m trying to save some embarrassment.”
Canadian Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Gail Shea called Anderson’s remarks disappointing and suggested she spend time with East Coast sealers to understand the hunt’s importance.
“Hollywood celebrities are not going to dictate policy in Canada because we make decisions that are based on science and consultation with Canadians,” Shea told the Canadian Press.
Canada’s East Coast seal hunt, which occurs annually from mid-November to mid-May, mostly in Newfoundland and Labrador and in the Gulf of St Lawrence, is the largest in the world, killing an average of 300,000 harp seals annually.
Animal rights groups have protested the hunt, saying it is cruel, poorly monitored and provides little economic benefit. Seal hunters and Canadian authorities say it is sustainable, humane and provides income for villagers in isolated northern indigenous Inuit communities.
Earlier this year, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper dined on seal meat in a gesture of support for the country’s embattled seal hunting industry. Canada’s Governor General Michaelle Jean made international headlines this summer when she helped carve a seal and ate part of its heart in support of the traditional aboriginal hunt.
PETA claims it is not targeting the aboriginal hunt but the large-scale East Coast commercial hunt.
PETA says its ads will appear in entertainment magazines and on blogs and will be tweeted in many languages starting this fall. The aim is to keep pressure on the government year-round instead of just during the spring when protests occur during the hunt.
Anderson said baby seals are bludgeoned in front of their mothers before they have their first swim. But Shea said the killing of baby seals hasn’t been practiced in Canada since the early 1980s.
Activists focus on it because of its emotional appeal, Shea said.
“They still use the pictures of white seal pups, which are very cute, and of course they’re bleeding red blood on white ice,” she said. “It’s all very dramatic, but it doesn’t happen.”
EU nations gave their final approval in July to a ban on imports of seal products in an effort to force Canada to end its annual seal hunt. The new EU rule offers narrow exemptions so Inuit communities from Canada, Greenland and elsewhere can continue traditional hunts but bars them from large-scale trading of their pelts and other seal goods in Europe.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
RSS