Expert Author Speaks Out on Canadian Seal Hunt
For expert insight on the history of the Canadian seal hunt and commentary on the current hunt, co-founder of Greenpeace Rex Weyler is available for comment. Weyler is also shortlisted for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, awarded April 13 in Ottawa.
(PRWEB) April 13, 2005 -- For expert insight on the history of the Canadian seal hunt and commentary on the current hunt, Greenpeace co-founder and award-nominated author Rex Weyler is available for comment.
In a recent article in the online magazine, The Tyee, Weyler publicly protested the Canadian seal hunt. He noted that the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans revived the seal hunt in 1996, and with the current hunt underway, "we have returned to the state of affairs in the 1950s."
"The herd has recovered to its 1950 level of 3 to 5 million animals, and the quotas have returned to the 1951 levels. The DFO claims the quotas are sustainable, but similar quotas were clearly not sustainable in the 1950s." (The Tyee, Apr. 11)
Rex Weylers history of Greenpeace -- Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists and Visionaries Changed the World -- was published simultaneously in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. (Raincoast, 2004). The second section of the Greenpeace book discusses the Canadian harp seal nurseries and the slaughtering of seal pups. Weyler also analyzes the backroom negotiations and discussions with then-Fisheries Minister Romeo LeBlanc (1976), the media attention and scrutiny of Greenpeace's campaigns from 1969 to 1979, the Seal Protection Act, and the destruction of fisheries by commercial fishing fleets.
Weyler's book takes the reader into the private circle of one of the most intriguing and consequential organizations of the world, Greenpeace. The book has recently been nominated for the prestigious Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. The $15,000 prize is administered by the Writer's Trust of Canada and will be awarded at the Politics and the Pen event on April 13th in Ottawa.
Expert on the Canadian seal hunt and citizen protests
Rex Weyler was a participant and early founder of Greenpeace. He reported and photographed the grassroots, activist days of the organization that became Greenpeace. Weyler's first-hand experiences of the seal hunt, and his decades-long involvement in the protest, position him to speak knowledgeably about recent developments in the controversial seal hunt.
To arrange an interview with Rex Weyler, contact:
David Leonard
Senior Publicist
Raincoast Books
416-934-9903
Rex Weyler is the author of Blood of the Land, for which he received a Pulitzer Prize nomination. His photographs and essays have appeared in numerous magazines including the New York Times, The Smithsonian, Rolling Stone and National Geographic.
www.rexweyler.com
Raincoast Books is a Canadian publisher and distributor based in Vancouver, BC. Raincoast Publishing, which includes the Polestar imprint and key titles from Press Gang Publishers, produces a wide range of fiction and non-fiction titles for adults and children. Raincoast Distribution is the exclusive Canadian distributor for publishers from the U.K., the U.S. and Canada.
www.raincoast.com/greenpeace
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