Vegan bodybuilders, Robert Cheeke, Giacomo Marchese, and Jimi Sitko are poised to make history as they compete on April 25, 2009 in Phoenix, Arizona at the 2009 INBF Best of the West Bodybuilding Championships – Pro Qualifier. This will mark the first time in history that three Vegan Bodybuilders have competed on the same stage and in the same weight class.

 

 

"We have been training extremely hard, working out two to five hours a day, pushing ourselves through each grueling workout, demanding excellence from our workouts and diets, and we are determined to make a difference, save lives, and promote veganism in a unique and positive way" says Cheeke, founder of Vegan Bodybuilding and Fitness.

 

They are chronicling their journey to the competition in a documentary film called Vegan Brothers in Iron, due for a Fall 2009 release.

 

"To immobilize each of the seal pups, a sealer near us quickly clubbed every seal within a small radius and then dragged the bodies to the centre of his circle. One by one he flipped each seal on its back and skinned it. If the seal flipped around or fought against the skinning, he'd flip it on its stomach, club it several more times and then finish the skinning."
- IFAW Seal Hunt Observer

In just a few short weeks, Canada's ice floes will transform from spectacular miracle to blood-soaked graveyard for more than 250,000 baby seals. Harp seals as young as three weeks old will be shot or beaten, impaled with metal hooks, or even have the skin ripped off their bodies as Canada's commercial seal hunt gets underway.

Donate online right now to help us pass the Harb Seal Bill which will end this hunt.

Your gift means you're right there with us on the ice as our brave hunt observers document the cruelty and suffering of baby seals. We've even witnessed an injured seal at the foot of a sealer try to sit up -- only to be hooked in the face and dragged back to the boat still very much alive.

Observing and documenting the hunt is not easy or inexpensive work. It means hours of flying over icy Atlantic waters searching for sealing boats. It means hours of documenting the hunt from the ice floes and from the air in helicopters. It means reviewing hours of tape to make sure we document every case of abuse that we capture on film.

And without this footage, the world would not know the kind of animal cruelty really taking place at this hunt - one the Canadian government still calls "humane."