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ers on the ice. Despite being struck by sealing clubs, punched and kicked, not one sealer was arrested for assault. The attack was video-taped and the sealers identified yet the Royal Canadian Mounted Police stated there was insufficient evidence to charge the sealers. The Sea Shepherd crew were jailed and fined for approaching within a half a nautical mile of a seal being killed. In addition to the hazards of thick ice and nasty weather, the Sea Shepherd crew face the threat of violence from the sealers and the threat of arrest under the Canadian Seal Protection regulations that make it a criminal offense to witness or document the killing of a seal without the permission of the government of Canada. Canada's commercial seal "hunt" is the largest mass slaughter of marine mammals in the world. This year, Canada will allow 270,000 harp seals to be killed. Canada's 2006 quota for killing seals: 325,000 for the regular commercial "hunt" and an additional 10,000 harp seal allowance for new aboriginal initiatives, personal use, and Arctic hunts. As usual, the commercial quota was exceeded, resulting in over 330,000 seals being kiilled. During the previous three years, the government of Canada delivered the death sentence to over one million baby harp seals. Sea Shepherd continues to oppose this annual obscenity called a "hunt." It is not a hunt because the sealers simply walk up to the seals (who have no means of escaping or hiding) and bash the seals on the head or shoot them. Sea Shepherd, known for direct action, has and continues to use other methods to fight to bring the "hunt" to a permanent end. In 2005, Sea Shepherd joined many other organizations in promoting the international boycott of Canadian seafood products as a means to strip the commercial seal "hunt" of all economic value and force it, by financial means, to end. The Boycott of Canadian Seafood targets the very people who slaughter the seals: It is the fishing industry that runs the seal "hunt" which is a make-work project for off-season fisherman. Sea Shepherd Seal Defense http://www.seashepherd.org/seals/