Namibia Seal Hunt:

Activists have had much success in bringing attention to the Canadian seal hunt. While this is great news, we also felt the need to bring attention to a lesser known but still as inhumane hunt that transpires in Namibia. This is the second largest seal hunt in the world.

Namibia is the only country in the Cape fur seal's range in which commercial hunting is permitted. Sealing occurs on two mainland colonies, Cape Cross and Wolf/Atlas Bay, where 75 percent of the pups are born. From July 1 through Nov. 15, commercial hunters hire approximately 160 part-time workers to kill the seals, most pups between the ages of 7 and 11 months. Hunters club the pups on the head with large, ice-pick-like clubs, and then stab them in the heart. The much larger bulls are shot. 

Despite a declining population of Cape fur seals and high mortality rates among the seal population, the hunting quota increases every year, ballooning to 91,000 seals in 2006

It is a horrendously cruel slaughter, targeting babies still nursing their mothers' milk. The nursing young are the primary target, as their fur is the most valuable. Older bulls are the secondary target, as seal penis is still popular in Asia as an aphrodisiac. The pups are bludgeoned with clubs and then stabbed through the chest or heart and left to die a slow and agonizing death. The larger bulls are shot.

At Cape Cross, seal slaughter and seal watching intertwine in a sickening mockery of eco-tourism. Hunters descend on the herd at dawn, separating the nursing babies from the mothers, rounding them up and butchering them in front of each other. At 10:00 a.m. the carnage is cleaned up, the blood is covered with more sand and tourists are let in to admire the seals in their natural habitat - the survivors from that morning's slaughter!! It's truly sickening.

In the south, the seal colony is situated in the sperrgebiet restricted diamond area No. 1, land controlled by Namdeb Diamond Corporation (Pty) Limited, which is in turn owned in equal shares by the Government of the Republic of Namibia and De Beers Centenary AG. According to De Beers, "Neither Namdeb nor any of its associated companies are involved in any seal culling activities anywhere. No support, logistic or otherwise, is provided to the sealers". However, sealers are actively supported by De Beers. Sealers are ushered through security check-points and allowed into the restricted area every day in order to kill seals. Where mobile phones and cameras are banned from the restricted zones, sealers are allowed to bring in guns, knives and clubs. Furthermore, observation and documentation of the slaughter is not possible, due to the activity taking place within the restricted zone where passage is barred and cameras are not allowed.