POST-EVENT REPORT:
Celebrity press conference, Joburg

As part of the Anti-Sealing Day observed worldwide today, 15 March 2011, a press conference was held in Johannesburg to create awareness of the annual massacre of around 85 000 nursing seal cubs in Namibia.

Organisations involved: Fur Free, Beauty Without Cruelty,
Sea Shepherd, PETA and others

The following celebrities participated by making public statements against the slaughter:

Back row left to right:

Jenna Clifford (entrepreneur)
Bokang Montjane (Miss SA 2010)
Catherine Constantinides
(entrepreneur and former Miss Earth)
Christina Storm (model and actress)
Candice Brink (model)
Louise Carver  (performing artist),

Front row left to right:

Denver Burns (former Mr South Africa),
Braam Malherbe (TV presenter)
Cito (performing artist, Wonderboom)

See summaries of their statements below, and/or click on the following link for video recordings of their statements:

http://www.4shared.com/video/
XE3RLgyH/Fur_Free_4X3.html
(Please note that the footage contains an error in that Catherine Constantinides is referred to as a former
Miss World instead of a former Miss Earth.)

Background information:

The Namibian Seal massacre is now responsible for the largest slaughter of (mammal) wildlife on the planet. It is considered to be the most brutal of all 'culls'.

Every year for the past three years, the kill quota has been set at 85 000 nursing pups and 6 000 bulls. In the past, concessionaries have admitted that there are simply not enough animals to kill, and they seldom meet their quota. Yet the Namibian authorities insist on increasing the quota.

The Namibian Government has been resorting to non-existent laws to arrest and detain journalists who attempt to film the massacre. See http://bit.ly/eAQzaU. The government also inflates the figures of the actual seal population to justify a higher kill quota – see http://tinyurl.com/5rpp7nx

Seal clubbers have been known to attack and beat journalists – see http://tinyurl.com/62vujny

The following footage shows how savage this "cull" is (warning - graphic content): http://tinyurl.com/5wfb3we

Also note the following:

• Independent observers have concluded the killing methods to be cruel and inhumane, causing unnecessary suffering. (See the SA Journal of Science 2010, 106(3/4.)
• Namibia's own Animal Protection Act expressly forbids beating an animal to death. The authorities circumvent this by not classifying seals as animals.
• It is not about conservation, since the Cape fur seal is being threatened by extinction (see CITES list of endangered species app II). (The quota of pups to be 'harvested'  now exceeds the number of pups alive on the first day of the 'cull'.)
• Independent research has found that the seals do not adversely affect Namibia's fisheries, and that fish numbers have declined due to human overfishing and bad management practices.
• South Africa stopped its seal culling in 1990 for the above reasons, and Namibia was advised by the Commission on Sealing to follow suit.
• The Namibian Government has ignored all pleas, stating that it will not be prescribed to by anyone.
• Clubbers hardly benefit, since they cannot even support their families. We are advocating the promotion of community-based, sustainable seal-viewing eco-tourism, which already yields 10 times the revenue generated by the sealing industry.
• There is no market for the pelts any longer, since the European Union has placed a ban on the import of all seal products. All the pelts are bought by a single businessman, Hatem Yavuz. He buys the pelts at US$6, whereas tourists pay US$12 to view the living seals.

• Louise Carver: "Sustainable ecotourism would generate more income for Namibia than the killing of the seals."
• Jenna Clifford: "All real men and women unite. Stop this barbarism and save the seals for generations to come."
• Catherine Constantinides: "We are raping our ecosystems. Seals have rights too."
• Cito: "This disregard for life has got to stop. South Africa stopped its seal cull in 1990, and it's about time that Namibia follows suit."
• Braam Malherbe: "Elie Wiesel says: "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim."
• Bokang Montjane: "The quota of pups to be harvested exceeds the number of pups alive on the first day of the killing."
• Christina Storm: "This has now become the biggest slaughter of wildlife in the world. This has nothing to do with conservation, since the seals are being threatened by extinction."
• Catherine Grenfell (5 fm): "I think it's important that we as South Africans take a stand against the massacre of Cape Fur seals in Namibia."
• Denver Burns: "I personally won't be travelling to Namibia until this heinous practice has been stopped."
• Candice Brink: This act of cruelty against animals is barbaric and inhumane, therefore I completely support a boycott against Namibia. The seal clubs have not even been weaned, so this is murder in the nursery."