WE, your Memorialists, the Members of the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Legislature of the State of Maine now assembled in the First Regular Session, most respectfully present and petition the United States Congress as follows:

WHEREAS,  the State of Maine has strong and valuable ties to Canada, sharing a long, common border with the Provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick, and Maine is the state closest to the Canadian Maritime Provinces; and

WHEREAS,  the Canadian commercial seal hunt is the largest annual mass slaughter of marine mammals in the world, and harp seals are the primary target of the hunt, with 98% of all harp seals killed in 2006 being pups under 3 months of age, and hooded seals are also killed; and

WHEREAS,  the annual shooting, clubbing and often live skinning of more than 300,000 seal pups in front of their mothers has outraged much of the international community, including the European Union, which has banned all trade in harp and hooded seal products, and has prompted the international effort to boycott Canadian seafood products; and

WHEREAS,  the slaughter is done mainly for the luxury fur market and therefore is unnecessary and is demonstrably cruel, as evidenced by wounded seals that are often left to suffer in agony and pups that are often initially only wounded, with an estimated 42% skinned alive while conscious; and

WHEREAS,  Maine citizens believe in the humane treatment of animals, and a report by an independent team of veterinarians who studied the commercial seal hunt concluded that government regulations regarding humane killings were being neither respected nor enforced; and

WHEREAS,  the Canadian government once banned this practice, but then removed the ban, which has resulted in the brutal deaths of over 1,000,000 seal pups in the last 3 years, and reports have shown that the slaughter of the pups failed to comply with Canada's basic animal welfare standards; now, therefore, be it