I encourage everyone to attempt to grab a bubble bar from their site. I say “attempt” because they seem to be out of stock at the moment. I stopped by my local Lush store over the weekend and they barely had any bubble bars left!
Took a bath with the bar today – it was lovely!

Awaiting moderation huh? the hypocrisy will never cease, you will censor anything that is pro sealer……. You dont support freedom of choice for sealer and you wont support freedon of speech for those who think differently… you guys suck

Wow.
There was a lot of aggression in that post. Everyone is a keyboard warrior these days, though I suppose what I always feared turned out to be correct: Those who back something such as the seal hunt aren’t people I would actually want to meet.

And please refrain from painting us with such a broad brush. Many of us here that read Ecorazzi and are against the seal hunt -are- vegetarian and many of those who aren’t vegetarian don’t still condone animal cruelty. You are free to express your opinion, everyone is, but how you express it is just as important and you seem to be very, very angry and not expressing it well.

Dear Readers: Some of the information presented on the Lush website about the Canadian Seal Hunt is inaccurate. Kindly consider the following facts:

– Seals are not skinned alive. Independent international veterinarians and European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) experts concluded that the suggestions by anti-sealing groups that many seals are skinned alive are not true. In fact, EFSA said in its 2007 report that “it is incorrect to conclude that 42% of the seals in the sample were skinned alive.”

Recent changes to the Marine Mammal Regulations (MMR) will enhance the humaneness of the annual seal hunt. These changes include the three-step process (stunning, checking, and bleeding the seals); and require sealers to verify death and animals being bled for a minimum of one minute prior to skinning.

– The hunt is sustainable and the harp seal population is healthy and abundant. The Northwest Atlantic harp seal population is currently estimated at 5.6 million animals, nearly triple what it was in the 1970s, and has been at that level for the past ten years.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada sets quotas at levels that ensure the health and abundance of seal herds, and considers many factors, such as climate change, ice conditions, pup mortality, natural mortality, incidental harvest or bycatch, the Greenland and Arctic hunts and commercial harvest levels when making its decision. In no way are seals – and harp seals in particular – an “endangered species”.

– The Canadian government does not manage the seal hunt to assist the recovery of cod stocks. The impact of seals on the recovery of cod stocks is complex. Seals eat cod, but seals also eat other fish that prey on cod.

The commercial quota is established on sound conservation principles. The management objectives for the Canadian seal hunt are to provide economic advantage for sealers while maintaining a healthy seal population.

– Animal rights groups currently campaigning against the seal hunt cite a 2004 Ipsos Reid poll stating that the majority of Canadians are opposed to the hunt. In fact, DFO has conducted public opinion research on this subject in 2000 and 2005. The results of both polls indicated that a majority of Canadians do not object to the seal hunt if it is conducted in a humane manner.

– Lastly, whitecoat seals are not hunted. The hunting of harp seal pups (whitecoats) and hooded seal pups (bluebacks) is illegal – and has been since 1987. Whitecoat harp seals have not been hunted since 1982. The Marine Mammal Regulations (MMR) prohibit the trade, sale or barter of the fur of these pups. The seals that are hunted are self-reliant, independent animals.

The Canadian government will continue to defend the rights of Canadian sealers to provide a livelihood for their families through our humane, responsible and sustainable hunt.

For accurate information about the Canadian seal hunt, please visit http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/seal.

Hmm. As a Canadian who studies indigenous issues in my fair country, I have mixed feelings about this subject. As we can see from the posts above, it is a polarizing issue and people love to get their hate on when it comes to the seal hunt.

Personally, I’m a vegetarian who tries to practice non-killing. And yet I have respect for traditional hunters who kill for sustenance and have an intimate relationship with the ecology that surrounds them. No doubt, shooting seals with a high powered rifle on a motor boat is not a traditional or sustainable form of hunting, and it’s not for food.
However no one ever talks about why the hunters do what they do. It’s because they have no choice, they are desperately poor (the UN has reported on the shocking standards of living in the communities that depend on sealing) and this is all they know. It’s the best money they can make in the area. Progress in the protection of the rainforest in South America didn’t happen until outsiders offered viable alternatives to clear cutting for ranching.
It will be easy for advocates of the hunt to continue to dismiss the environmental and ethical arguments of activists as long as they do not offer any clear alternatives for those affected the most. In its current form the movement smacks of cultural imperialism and is an easy target for wingnuts like crazy mccrazyton who commented above…

I’m Irish not Canadian but the annual photo op that the Canadian seal hunt has become fascinates me. I wonder how many of the companies who are so “disgusted” by the clubbing of baby seals shown in your pictures realize that baby seals are not hunted in Canada? Also how many of their employee will happily eat lamb (baby sheep that look just as cute in photographs) or veal (calves, baby cattle, just as cute). Maybe before jumping on the annual evil seal hunt band wagon Lush should look closer to home.

I’m amazed at how many companies cynically use issues like seal hunting to gain publicity and a couple of bytes of coverage in the blogging/internet community. Most of us are tired of it, not because we agree with the idea of clubbing cute baby seals but because we understand what really happens, a harvest, a cull, and we are sick of B list celebrities showing up on our TV screens telling us how much they love the baby seals and how cruel the world is.

I say keep KILLING them. I bet its fun

wait no sorryyy i read it wrong… my bad.

PS….I’m also a vegan so lets stop comparing those who eat meat to the seal hunt!

You guys are so dum. No baby seals have been killed in 20 years. It was banned a long time ago.
Get rid of the dam picture!

Oh no! I really liked lush but this campaign just seems too cynical to me.

Whoever said:

“Does “stunning, checking, and bleeding the seals” sound humane to anyone!?”

Actually, yes it does! Stunning renders the seal unconscious and therefore unable to feel the blow from the club. The sealer checks to make sure the seal is actually dead, then bleeds the body (which makes absolutely certain no seal is skinned alive). The sealers also have to go through a two week vetinary course on correct technique before they are let lose on the seals.

The slaughter technique is certainly comparable to that used by the commercial meat industry and a wild caught seal is going to have a much happier life than any intensively farmed animal.

I think some of the people who commented are rather distanced from nature. As a top predators, seal populatations are kept constant largely by finite food resources. Up to a limit, every seal killed is freeing up fish for another seal that doesn’t have to starve.

I would be much more supportive of a campaign against battery farming, but I suppose chickens, pigs cows etc just aren’t cute enough.

I am so pissed off at all the retarded hypocrites here. There are so many other animals that are endangered and killed more brutally. Sharks have their fin cut and thrown back into the ocean and left to drown but I guess no one cares because sharks aren’t as cute as seals. Farm animals get their throat slit consciously and left to bleed to death.

I will refute every argument that the anti-sealers will come up with:

-Seal hunting is cruel, bloody, inhumane and barbaric.
Farm animals and other ENDANGERED animals get killed in a much more brutal manner than these seals.

-The baby seals are innocent and shouldn’t be killed.
All the other animals that America and McDonalds slaughter are also innocent. Whitecoats (baby seals) are illegal to hunt now.

-I’m vegetarian so I’m against all animal slaughter.
Well too bad America is a country full of obese people from eating Mc Donalds and a tiny fraction of vegetarians don’t mean a thing.

-Humans are terrible creatures and don’t deserve to live.
Then go kill yourself.

-We’re in the 21st century so we shouldn’t kill animals in barbaric ways.
Look at the farms in America or your own country. They cut the throat alive and bleed slowly to death.

In conclusion, all against the seal hunt for the reasons above are hypocrites and stupid at best.