PETA:f baby harp seals will be beaten over the head with primitive clubs

Dear Friend,

In a few short weeks, Canada's ice floes will be the scene of carnage. Hundreds of thousands of baby harp seals will be beaten over the head with primitive clubs, be impaled with metal hooks, and have the skin ripped off their bodies. More than 205,000 seals are estimated to have been barbarically killed in this way in 2008 alone.

At least that many seals are expected to be slaughtered this year.

But we can, and must, do more than simply bear witness to this terrible cruelty and the wanton greed and vanity that drives the demand for fur—all fur.

Just yesterday, the European Union moved one step closer to a complete ban on the trade of skin from seals slaughtered in Canada. And in support of this, protests against the Canadian government, many of them organized by PETA, are now going on all around the globe.

To counter the growing outrage, the Canadian government has introduced pathetic new measures to make this year's grotesque seal massacre appear more humane. It has banned the use of hakapiks—clubs with metal hooks on their ends—on seals who are at least 1 year old. And now sealers must theoretically wait all of 60 seconds before skinning seals in order to "ensure" that they are dead.

But nearly all the animals killed in this year's seal slaughter will be just a few months old—young enough to be bludgeoned to death with the same hakapiks that Canada calls too barbaric for use on older seals. There is nothing at all humane, however, about impaling thousands of baby seals with hooks and leaving them to choke on their own blood before being skinned.

That is why we are now launching a new campaign to stop the government-sanctioned seal massacre—a campaign that targets the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. The Games are a year away, but now is the time to act.

The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee is already well aware of the surging calls from all around the world to stop the seal slaughter. We are pressuring the committee, as well as the Canadian government, to do the right thing today—or face unprecedented demonstrations and economic challenges that could take some of the much-coveted profits away from the Winter Games and leave a long-lasting bloody stain on Canada's global reputation.

With this year's seal massacre fast approaching, I must urgently ask you to help by acting today in the following ways:

1. Speak out for seals by writing to the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee and letting it know that it is in its best interest to help end the slaughter.
2. Donate online right now and help us do everything that we can to save seals and all animals killed for their skins.

The world is calling on the Canadian government to end the seal slaughter now. Please add your voice to that of other compassionate people by being counted today.

Please also lend your support by making a special donation to support PETA's campaign to stop the cruelty of fur—on Canadian ice-floes … in designer showrooms and stores … on runways … on fur farms … in hidden slaughterhouses … and in the wild, where animals are caught in bone-breaking steel traps.

Thank you for doing all that you can to help us rally the world to send a clear message to Canada that this massacre must end.

Kind regards,


Ingrid E. Newkirk
President

P.S. Together, we can move mountains. Our pressure is already getting results. Please add your voice to that of others who are demanding an end to the killing and the cruelty of fur—and support PETA's campaign to help end horrific slaughters like this with a donation of any size that you can give. Every dollar and every voice counts. Thank you!

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PETA Needs Help!

Dear Friend,

From the shampoo or shaving cream we use in the morning to the cologne we apply to go out on the town, our personal care products say a lot about us.

But there's one thing your makeup or shampoo choices should never say: that you support torturing and killing animals.

Of all the ridiculous reasons that people inflict needless suffering on animals, vanity is one of the most pathetic. Despite the availability of effective and cruelty-free product-testing methods, countless individual rabbits, mice, and other animals are still poisoned, blinded, and killed every year in outdated and ineffective tests—all for the personal care products that fill many people's bathroom cabinets.

You can help end this horrific cruelty by donating to PETA today for our special "Stop Animal Testing" Challenge. Your gift will be matched, dollar-for-dollar!

Thanks to all our supporters who've stepped up in this special challenge, PETA has raised $84,331 toward our $250,000 goal. Please donate as much as you can today–your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar, up to $250,000 and will go towards helping end the terrible experiments done on animals in laboratories.

Your generous gift in this campaign can help strengthen our unique Caring Consumer program. When PETA's investigations expose companies testing on animals, we tell people to shop elsewhere. And this economic pressure gets corporate attention, often when nothing else will. Major corporations, including Revlon, Mary Kay, Method Home, Estée Lauder, Bath & Body Works, and others, have signed PETA's pledge against animal testing. In the last year alone, 44 companies have licensed PETA's cruelty-free bunny logo, which certifies their stand against cruel and unnecessary tests on animals.

Yet some companies, such as L'Oréal, Unilever, and Johnson & Johnson, remain in the "dark ages," performing cruel and crude tests on rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and other animals. Companies like these drip caustic chemicals into the sensitive eyes of rabbits, blinding them before they kill them, or they pump nail polish down animals' throats to see how much they can endure before dying in agony.

And for what? Animal tests on most consumer products are not required by the government. These experiments are bad science and do nothing to make products any safer. Even if a cosmetics maker finds that its mascara blinds animals, the company can still legally sell it to you! With the availability of so many effective non-animal testing methods—which are cheaper, faster, and more reliable—conducting animal tests for personal care products is not just unnecessary but also inexcusable.

Please make a generous donation to PETA today to help us end this senseless cruelty during this special matching campaign. Your gift today can do twice as much good for these animals.

You—both as a caring consumer and a PETA supporter—are the single most important person in our efforts to go after companies that continue to experiment needlessly on animals.

Thank you for taking action to help end this injustice.


Ingrid E. Newkirk
President

P.S. You can help PETA encourage others to follow your fashionable example and stop corporations that are still conducting unnecessary animals tests by making a generous gift towards this "Stop Animal Testing" Challenge. Your donation today will have double the impact!

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