From ANTM to Saving the Seals

In the words of Tyra, "Nigel Barker, famed and noted photographer," is using his celebrity status for some good! Recently, he accepted an invitation from the US Humane Society to document the East Coast hunt in Canada. There, 275,000 seals will be harvested in the Gulf of St. Lawrence as well as in the coast of Newfoundland.

These helpless seals are killed primarily for their fur used in high fashion. Here are a couple of basics of the seal hunt, taken from The Humane Society of the United States, that Barker is trying to raise awareness of:

Which Seals Are Targeted by Canada's Seal Hunt?

Harp seals are the primary target of the commercial seal hunt, and to a much smaller extent, hooded seals are also killed. In 2006, 98 percent of the harp seals killed were pups under just three months of age.

Who Kills Seals and Why?

Sealing is an off-season activity conducted by fishermen from Canada's East Coast. They make, on average, a small fraction of their annual incomes from sealing—and the rest from commercial fisheries. Even in Newfoundland, where 90 percent of sealers live, the government estimates there are less than 6,000 fishermen who actively participate in the seal hunt each year.

Is the Seal Hunt Cruel?

Yes. In 2001, a report by an independent team of veterinarians who studied the hunt concluded that governmental regulations regarding humane killing were neither being respected nor enforced, and that the seal hunt failed to comply with Canada's basic animal welfare standards. Shockingly, the veterinarians found that in 42 percent of the cases they studied, the seals had likely been skinned alive while conscious.

Parliamentarians, journalists, and scientists who observe Canada's commercial seal hunt each year continue to report unacceptable levels of cruelty, including sealers dragging conscious seals across the ice floes with boat hooks, shooting seals and leaving them to suffer in agony, stockpiling dead and dying animals, and even skinning seals alive.

How Many Seals Are Killed Each Year?

Hundreds of thousands. In fact, over the past three years, nearly one million seals have been killed. The current kill levels are higher than they have been in half a century. During the 2006 hunt, the Canadian government allowed fishermen to club and shoot at least 354,344 seals. The last time seals were killed at this rate—in the 1950s and '60s—the harp seal population was reduced by nearly two thirds.

And the actual number of seals killed is probably far higher than the number reported. Many seals are shot at and injured in the course of the hunt, and studies suggest that a significant number of these animals slip beneath the surface of the water, where they die slowly and are never recovered.

Fashion shouldn't have to come at the painful expense of a helpless animal's life. Check out the following pictures to see the seal products, from start to finish.