Ocean Sentry
(From divemaster.com) About 80,000 Cape fur seals, most of them pups, will be killed during this year”s Namibian seal cull despite international calls by animal rights activists to stop the slaughter.The annual cull started on July 1 and will continue until November 15. South African seal activist, Francois Hugo of Seal Alert-SA, is calling for an international ban on Namibian seal products. He is lobbying for a total end to the killing of baby seals. Hugo says that the Cape Fur Seal is an endangered species and that the population is decreasing fast.
“The cullers are expected to club the animal, and then immediately pierce the heart,” he said.
In the meantime, the organisation Citizens of the World has sent out a petition calling for the protection of Cape fur seals in southern Africa under the United Nations World Charter for Nature.
This petition seeks to combine all separate existing petitions, which collectively have received the support of over 42 000 citizens in over 80 countries, according to Hugo.
It calls on the governments of South Africa, Namibia and Angola to “accept their obligation to promote and protect the Cape fur seals”.
