Canada
Observing animals and plants
Canada has an impressive variety of wildlife that includes polar bears, wolves, buffalo, bald eagles, puffins, caribou, whales and narwhals. Fans of large mammals are well served, as are birdwatchers and marine life lovers. However, hunting and human invasion begin to pose a serious threat to the native fauna. Canada has abundant national parks, national natural areas and migratory bird sanctuaries that are good places for responsible wildlife watching.
Marineland - Aquarium
“Marineland”, which is part of the Niagara Falls theme park, has received international criticism from several organizations for exposing killer whales, beluga whales, dolphins, sea lions and walruses in crowded conditions. Here visitors are encouraged to interact with animals, for example to feed the belugas. These activities are very harmful to animals, and force them to behave in an unnatural way in order to receive food. Stressful training methods and inadequate facilities are probably the cause of death of already 40 whales and dolphins in this place.
More information here and here.
Seal culling
Several animal welfare organizations have called for an absolute tourist boycott of Canada, because of the country's refusal to ban seal culling. In the last three years, the Canadian Government has authorized the killing of more than 300,000 seals. Most of them are only a few days old when they are brutally beaten to death.
Polar bear hunting
Each year the Government of Canada grants a limited number of licenses that allow to hunt polar bears in the western population of Hudson Bay. Tourists pay large sums of money to be taken to "hunting safaris", where a group of people, often accompanied by dogs, look for polar bears in order to shoot them. This activity is not only extremely cruel, but also poses great danger to conservation, because the population of polar bears continues to decrease. The same problem is also seen in the Great Bear Rainforest, where grizzly bears are in danger (for more information: bearsforever.ca)
More information about hunting.
Dog sledding
Although at first glance mushing may seem like a harmless activity, it still is use of animals for entertainment and sometimes business, either pulling sleds with tourists or competing. And as such, although in many cases it is carried out responsibly, sometimes there are cases of abuse, neglect, overexploitation or mistreatment. According to the Vancouver Humane Society, an entity in Canada, there are numerous cases of owners who get rid of the animals when they are no longer running enough or are no longer profitable by shooting them in the head.
Click here for more information on the subject.
Dolphinariums
In this country you can also find centers which keep cetaceans (dolphins, killer whales or beluga whales) in captivity. Science has shown that these intelligent animals suffer greatly in the limiting conditions of dolphinariums and their stress levels and mortality rates are very high.
The training of these animals for circus shows where they perform totally unnatural behaviors, and which can harm them physically, is achieved through keeping the animals in a permanent state of hunger so that they act in exchange for a piece of dead fish.
Condemned by their facial structure, which resembles a human smile, these highly social animals, which would swim long distances and dive into great depths in the wild, are used to perform stunts in small concrete tanks. Many of the animals are taken from the wild.
For more information on dolphins.
Local NGOs that can be contacted in case you want to make a donation, a complaint or find an animal that needs help in Canada:
