The Tree Shirt House

Every year, the most violent seal hunt happens in Namibia.

Indeed, the cape fur seal hunt opens annually on the 1st July for 140 days during which a killing quota of 85 000 nursed baby cape fur seals is authorized by the government. Unfortunately, the pretext behind this barbarous slaughter is to protect the interests of fisheries and to create employment for 120 unskilled people living in poor conditions.

There is a standardized procedure for the killing. Pups and nursing mothers are separated; only the pups are massacred, clubbed on the head with a wooden stick and then stabbed in the chest with the nails put on the pick-axe handle. Scientific reports have proven that there is strong evidence that the seal hunt is in fact a brutal butchering causing the seals a tremendous amount of stress & suffering not to say that this violent practice is in violation of UN, EU, US and Namibia's own laws.

Francois Hugo has dedicated his life to the association called Seal Alert SA established in 1999. Seal Alert is involved in stopping the largest seal slaughter in the world in Namibia, which involves the endangered Cape fur seal. In his opinion, the best option is to leave the Cape fur seals alone, and allow them to return to their extinct offshore islands. Indeed, when South Africa ended its seal culling policy in 1990, they managed the seal population in the exact same way and the outcome proved to be a success.

Seal rescues at their facilities and re-population of seals back to their extinct former seal islands are the daily activities of the association. The Tree Shirt House strongly supports their initiative by donating our proceedings in the hopes of a better world for the seals of Namibia.

We hope that by communicating as much as possible on the tragic matter that media coverage will finally shed light on this cruel clubbing cull.