Gulf of St. Lawrence

The Gulf of St Lawrence – about 25 miles south of the Magdalen Islands.

Today, the first day of the seal hunt, I witnessed unbearable suffering far out to sea on the ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

We flew at daybreak to the area we knew the sealing boats would be operating. Driving rain and snow pelted our helicopter as we made our way to the site of the commercial seal hunt. Soon, on the horizon, we began to spot the sealing boats. Familiar black specks on the horizon as far as I could see. There were at least seventy sealing vessels operating here.

The view from the sky was unbelievable. Red blood spread across the wet ice, stretching across the ice floes in all directions. Everywhere, carcasses were lined up – thousands of them abandoned by the sealers because they cannot sell the meat.

As we circled the sealing boats, I saw some familiar ones. Vessels I filmed last year whose crews routinely skinned animals alive. But unlike last year, there were more than 40 new additions to the hunt. Enormous sealing vessels that together will ensure that every seal pup here on these ice floes is clubbed or shot to death by the end of this hunt.

We put down our helicopters next to an area with some live seals and boats in the vicinity. We knew they would be unlikely to pass up the opportunity to club these animals to death, even in front of our cameras.

We walked quickly towards those seals, just three weeks old, grimly aware that we would soon be filming their slaughter. But nothing could prepare me for what came next.

As we drew closer, I saw some piles of seal carcasses that had been left until the sealers would return to skin them later. It took a second for me to realize that some of them were still conscious.

Directly in front of me were two seals. One was clearly dead, fixed glassy eyes staring into the distance. Her sad face seemed so betrayed. An injured pup just next to her struggled to move, as blood poured from her mouth and nose. And then we saw the next group of carcasses. In the midst of them, more clubbed seals that were conscious, trying to crawl, crying out in pain.

In the background the sealers reached the group of live seal pups we had spotted, and began to run through them, clubbing and beating them mercilessly.

We stayed with the dead and the dying for an hour and a half, until the sealers returned to finish them off. There was nothing we could do, no way to help end their suffering.

As I stood in the middle of this chaos and violence, I felt as though I had left the sane world.

Last week, I lay on the ice with these defenseless babies, felt their fluffy fur, spoke to them softly. Together, we coexisted in one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.

Today, I bore witness to the worst kind of betrayal on earth – the slaughter of the innocent for human greed.