Roxilla

If…

Money weren’t an object, would there still be such a need to plunder this planet of its resources?
We named each animal in the world, would it be as easy to kill them?
All the people in the world cared enough, would anything really change?
I did my bit to save the planet, would it make much difference?
Canada and China didn’t exist, would animals have a better chance?
We lived in a perfect world, would we really be able to stop being greedy?
One pup can touch so many, would it be enough to save them all?
We can feel horror at what is done to seals, can we feel anything for crocs who are skinned?
People are desperate enough to club seal pups to death for money, what else would they do?

This video was taken on the ice during Canada’s infamous seal hunt. After the sealers finally left the floes, amidst the carcasses of thousands of pups, a single pup was found. The sole survivor of something akin to Rwanda, 9-11 or any one of the tragedies that have befallen our societies. The difference is that instead of people, it was seals. Instead of terrorism, it was industry. All this mayhem and blood, for the sake of fur that is stolen from animals to be worn by silly, rich humans.

They had to leave this pup, because taking him away would have been the worst thing to do. Having seen what a seal pup is like, and witnessed the heartbreaking sight of a pup searching for some sort of comfort, this story brought a huge lump to my throat.

During my time volunteering at the aquarium, a very small pup was brought in by a well-meaning but clueless member of the public, who saw him stranded and felt she had to do something. He was maybe two or three days old, small, shiny and utterly beautiful. Like a lab puppy, when I first saw him he was pacing up and down the passage calling pitifully for his mom. Seal pups have it rough, they are often left for days at a time when their mothers go out in search of food. Sometimes they are reunited, other times not. They either find fellow pups to form a nursery, or they are left vulnerable for predators. Or ‘rescued’ by well-meaning humans in this case. He was just too small, and after spending a few days at the aquarium, getting force fed a special solution of seafood, barium and vitamins, a home was found for him in the Harties area. Seeing this pup grow over a few days, from a small and helpless squirt into a fierce beast with tiny teeth, who would shuffle up to your leg and try desperately to give you a good suck, and when that didn’t work, angrily try and sink his under-developed teeth into your leg. Picking him up, he was squirmy and fishy and so unbelievably beautiful that I could never forget that face.

On the morning that he was due to set off for his new home, the pup got sick. We knew his chances were poor, he hadn’t had the progesterone and hormones he so badly needed in that first week. He was too little, and he didn’t have a chance. He died soon after arrival, and his memories were not of his mother or his natural home, but of noise, and people, and feeding tubes shoved down his throat. We were never enough, and that stayed with me for many years.

Harp seals are much prettier than our regular old Cape fur seals, but even then – the memory of that pup is something that I will never forget, and the lessons were hard, but I won’t forget those either. Wild animals belong in the wild, not in aquariums, not on people, not in zoos and not in fridges.

As superior species, we have a right to try and help lesser beings and do what we can. If we don’t care, then who will?

Click here to learn more about Sully the Survivor.