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These photographs were taken in northeastern Canada with the International Fund for
Animal Welfare (IFAW) and document the practice of Harp seal hunting for the pelts of very
young seal pups. The Harp seal pups ride on the ice in the frozen Gulf of St. Lawrence, where
they are born. At this stage of their life (several weeks old) they cannot swim and, defenseless, are
clubbed to death by the seal hunters and skinned. In the hunts I observed and photographed
off Les Isles de Madeline in Quebec and off Prince Edward Island, only the pelts were taken;
everything else left behind on the ice and wasted. In these areas, tens of thousands of pups are
killed in the space of several weeks. Additionally, there is every reason to believe many of the
seals that are killed were too young to be legally hunted under Canadian law. The definition of which
seals can be legally hunted seems to be subject to shifting terms by the Canadian Department
of Fisheries to accommodate the hunters.

**A word of warning, these photographs are graphic.**

They are not for the squeamish. To skip these photographs, click here.