Icy Battleground is the first comprehensive account of the forty-year political controversy over the seal hunt. With a foreword by the Honourable John C. Crosbie, it traces the rise of the anti-sealing protests, the emergence of the Inte ational Fund for Animal Welfare, its vigorous and unrelenting campaign to end commercial sealing, and its strategies in mobilising pressure in Canada and abroad. It also assesses the Canadian gove ment's counter-strategies to continue the hunt as well as the challenges that emotionally targeted campaigns like the seal hunt pose for gove ment decision-makers.