PETA To Target Vancouver Olympics In Campaign To End Canada Seal Slaughter

For Immediate Release:
18 February 2009

Contact:
Sam Glover 020 7357 9229, ext 229; [email protected]

London – As the world’s attention turns to Canada in anticipation of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, PETA Europe is hoping to switch some of the focus from Canada’s Games to Canada’s shame – the country’s annual massacre of hundreds of thousands of baby seals. The group will announce a relentless year-long campaign leading up to and through the 2010 Games on the steps of Canada House in London. There, PETA will unveil its new parody of the Olympic logo targeting the seal slaughter, screen video footage, and display photos of the annual slaughter:

Date:   Wednesday February 18
Time:  12 noon sharp
Place:  Canada House, Trafalgar Square (Cockspur Street   Entrance next to Texas Embassy restaurant)

The following are just a few aspects of the new campaign:

PETA Europe will join forces with its international affiliates in the US, Germany, France, India, Australia, and Asia, and on behalf of animal protection organizations in the world, it will focus attention on the massacre through protests and by sending action alerts to millions of supporters.

PETA affiliates will use the campaign’s logo – a parody of the Olympic logo showing a hunter as he clubs a baby seal next to a blood-dripping rendition of the five interlocking Olympic rings – on badges and billboards and at pre-Olympic events around the world.

Letters will be written to the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee to ask for its help in persuading Canadian officials to end the hunt, which places Canada in the worst possible light.

The world looked on in horror as the Canadian government permitted the killing of more than 205,000 baby harp seals last year. The annual massacre usually takes place on the ice floes off Newfoundland and Labrador. These gentle animals have their heads bashed in or are shot, and they are often skinned alive while their wailing mothers look on helplessly.

“If Canada wants to clean up its world image for the Olympics, the first thing it should do is call off the universally condemned seal slaughter,” says PETA Europe Managing Director Ingrid E. Newkirk. “We want to make sure that everyone who’s interested in Canada’s Games learns about Canada’s shame.”

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.