Picture this beautiful sight:
A baby is being cradled by her mother. There is an abundance of love and warmth in their embrace and a feeling of serenity, so divine.
Many of us have experienced the bliss of love for our children and cherished the feeling of contentment that it brings.
Most of us, thank God, will never have to experience the agony and hurt of having our children taken away from us. Yet that is exactly what happens to the animals whose babies are killed in front of their mothers’ eyes for the benefit of human consumption. This is immensely agonizing.
Right now, baby seals are being taken from the warmth of their mothers’ sides to provide fur for human warmth.
After being beaten on the head, they are skinned and left to die. Their mothers look on in horror, wailing in the distance. They are unable to protect their babies, the babies they have brought into this world to love.
It's a gruesome and – for mother and child alike – an unbearably painful experience. Sealers use heavy wooden clubs with barbed metal hammer tops to bludgeon the baby seals. Then they hook them in the eye, cheek or mouth to avoid damaging their fur before dragging them across the ice. Every year, thousands of these gentle animals are shot or have their skulls smashed in by sealers before being skinned, sometimes while still alive.
Could you watch your child being hurt or killed in front of your eyes?
The killing of seals is a grotesque and shameful act which is happening now in Canada.
When I became a member of the United Religions Initiative, I pledged my support to its Charter, the Preamble of which states:
We, people of diverse religions, spiritual expressions and indigenous traditions throughout the world, hereby establish the United Religions Initiative to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence and to create cultures of peace, justice and healing for the Earth and all living beings.
Are animals included in the sphere of living beings?
I strongly urge you to support causes such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to stop the torture and unnecessary death of all animals.
This is no longer a beautiful sight.
Kiran Bali, MBE, JP
URI Global Council Chair
