Join the Club? More Killing of the Adorable and Defenseless

A baby polar bear, on which Jen reported earlier, isn't the only cute creature in peril this week: according to the Humane Society of the United States' countdown clock, there are only seven days left until the world's largest marine animal slaughter kicks off in Canada.

The (subsidized) seal industry's hunt, which lasts until May 15th, killed more than 300,000 seals last year, and while whitecoats are off-limits, most of those "harvested" were less than three months old.

If just the idea of baby seals being clubbed to death isn't disturbing enough, you can watch a horrifying video of fishermen chasing them around on bloody ice and bludgeoning them with hooked clubs. The hunt has been responsible for over a million allegedly inhumane seal murders since 2003, but that's just one of the animals' problems: that whole global warming thing means the ice on which they're born and grow up is melting, which, according to Canadian government estimates, was responsible for a 75% mortality rate among pups in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2002.

Despite claims by the Federal Fisheries Minister that the hunt is "humane and sustainable," the HSUS' year-long Canadian seafood boycott cost the country $350 million in exports to the US, and some European officials are calling for EU-wide action. Since this year's killing quota hasn't yet been released, animal rights groups are urging people to contact the Canadian government while there's still time.

- Nicole McClelland