Emily Lavender, an activist with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is chased by an unidentified man dressed in a dog suit in St. John's on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010.ANDREW VAUGHAN
PETA got a taste of its own tactics as one of its seal hunt protesters was pied in St. John's on Friday.
A woman wearing a seal suit was waiting for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to arrive for a speech when a man approached, dressed in a local mascot's outfit - a dog with a rain slicker and a Sou'wester rain hat.
The seal hunt supporter shoved a cream pie into the woman's face after knocking off the head of her seal costume.
The man then took off down the street.
Twenty-one-year-old Emily Lavender said she was happy to take a pie in the face for her cause.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals took credit earlier this week for hitting federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea in the face with a pie to protest her support for sealing.
Ms. Lavender held a sign that said: "Harper Stop the Seal Slaughter" as a handful of seal hunt supporters counter protested.
Ms. Lavender doesn't think it was over the line to pie Ms. Shea.
"It was a little tofu on her face," she said. "It's not nearly as embarrassing as the blood on her hands. And it's time she stop supporting the largest massacre of marine mammals on the planet."
Wallace Ryan of St. John's told Ms. Lavender to leave, that she was embarrassing herself.
He wore a T-shirt that said: "If seals were ugly, nobody would give a damn."
"We're here to point out that PETA has incited violence and hate against Newfoundland and Labrador for years," he said.
Sealers rely on the spring hunt economically,Mr. Ryan said, and PETA has no right to interfere.