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Oh, Canada! PETA tries to save the seals ... in Bangkok?
The animal rights group attempts to bring attention to Canada's annual slaughter by showing some painted skin
PETA certainly knows how to draw a crowd. This activist stood outside the office building housing the Canadian embassy to protest its annual seal hunt.You hear about people protesting in front of the Myanmar and Cambodia embassies in Bangkok all the time. But Canada? What did the polite, smiling Canadians ever do to annoy anyone, besides maybe being just too darn nice?
Well, there is our yearly seal slaughter. That offends a few people, particularly the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). But this is the first time they've taken issue with it in Bangkok.
Could you kill something with a face like this?
To be honest, I don’t know if PETA really thought this one through. The Canadian embassy doesn't even have its own building, for starters. It occupies a single floor in an office tower on Rama IV Road.
Second of all, how many athletes is Thailand sending to the 2010 Winter Olympics? As of now, none. In 2006, they sent one. Few Thais even watch the Winter Games, so getting them to boycott it isn't exactly a challenge.
That said, the girl definitely attracted a crowd and got people talking, so maybe there’s something to PETA's odd strategy. As a kid in Canada I remember seeing the brutal pictures of seals getting clubbed to death every year on the news, and can’t deny they are powerful images.
But given that Canada’s own Governor General -- a former TV anchor appointed by Queen Elizabeth II -- ripped into a seal carcass and ate its heart in a show of support for the country’s seal hunters earlier this year, PETA has its work cut out for it.
