Should Seal Hunting Be Illegal

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Seal hunting for sport is illegal, and it needs to be controlled or stopped. Seal pups especially need protection, because these brutal killings at one time almost led to the extinction of harp seals, and that still is a possibility today. Most hunters do not understand the damage they are causing. Poaching is a serious crime in most parts of the world, but mainly in Canada. What most hunters do not understand is that it is illegal regardless of the animal or the reason. Poachers do not take what they are doing seriously or they would not be poaching still today. There are a lot of ripple effects to committing this crime- for example, if the number of deer killed in Indiana every hunting season was not watched or controlled it is very likely …show more content…

Lawrence to East of Quebec, this is usually where the females give birth. A few hundred and possible up to a few thousand Canadian fishermen go to the coast and proceed to club, shoot and skin the pups for their fur. Most of the pups are killed anywhere between three weeks to three months old in age which is about 95% of the commercial seals.(harpseals.org) The hunt is really not much of a hunt at all these days. The hunters drive right up to the seals, whether it is in a snowmobile, truck or taking small boats that can break through ice. When on the icebreaker boats they can either get out, and walk to the pups or they can just shoot the seals from inside the boat (harpseal.org). The actual process of killing the seals is gruesome. Finding the seals is just the very first step. Then they beat them with what they refer to as “hakapiks” (long sticks with spikes/hooks on the ends). Most seal pups today are becoming stranded, most ice caps are melting so quickly that the pups do not have the time to learn how to swim as the ground beneath them disappears they become stuck where it is easy for seal poachers to kill the white-coat pups

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