Canada unveils annual seal hunt, blasts activists

[MaineDem]

OTTAWA, March 22 — Canada said on Tuesday it would allow 320,000 young seals to be killed this year and lashed out at activists who promise to boycott Canadian seafood products in a bid to stop the hunt.

Ottawa says the cull is needed to control a healthy seal population. But pictures of hunters clubbing defenseless animals to death has turned the event into an annual public relations nightmare for the government.

The two-month hunt, which this year starts on March 29, takes place on ice floes off the Atlantic coast where the seals give birth. Canada says the hunt is humane, but animal rights groups insist many animals are skinned alive and die in agony.

http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusintl/reuters03-22-092540.asp?reg=americas&vts=32220050938

[RebelOne]

1. It just makes me want to cry. n/t

[skippythwndrdog]

2. If the biologists think it is a good idea, I'm all for it.

yes, baby seals are cute, yes, clubbing them is kind of gross, but there is no fundamental difference between clubbing and shooting.

[Mistress Quickly]

3. Maybe they could use

cute pictures of them shooting the baby seals in the head? Would that improve the image?


How can you improve an image which is unimprovable?

on edit: as with deer here in GA, sometimes good protections lead to overpopulation, which leads to extreme spreading of illnesses and disease, which leads to more of the animals actually dying horrible deaths, so if this is something that can help in the long term, then the biologist know more than I. Hope I don't get flamed for that.

[Mari333]

4. Hey, the top 1% have to buy fur

You wouldnt want Ken Lay's wife to go without her babyseal furs?

[NickB79]

6. The hunters do eat the meat

Most of those who participate in the seal hunts are Native Americans, and they eat the meat of the seals they shoot (not club). That they can sell the fur is an added benefit, but not the sole reason they conduct the hunt.

[Trillo]

10. Where can I buy seal meat?

Myself, I'm not particularly against hunting, provided that the animal is used for food. The claims that the seal is used solely for fur, the allegations that seal hunters skin them and leave the carcasses behind, I find highly disturbing.

I've never seen seal meat for sale. Have I missed it at the market?

[Maple]

5. Well it's no different

than killing tiny calves for veal, after keeping them in small pens so they can't run around, or little lambs for Easter, or stuffing geese with food by using paddles so we can have pate...it's just that seals get the publicity.

[AndyTiedye]

7. Frank Zappa Had a Thing or Two to Say About That

Dreamed I was an eskimo
Frozen wind began to blow
Under my boots and around my toes
The frost that bit the ground below
It was a hundred degrees below zero...

And my mama cried
And my mama cried
Nanook, a-no-no
Nanook, a-no-no
Don’t be a naughty eskimo
Save your money, don’t go to the show

Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh
Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh
Well I turned around and I said ho, ho
And the northern lights commenced to glow
And she said, with a tear in her eye
Watch out where the huskies go, and don’t you eat that yellow snow
Watch out where the huskies go, and don’t you eat that yellow snow

(well, right about that time people
A fur-trapper (who was strictly from commercial)
Had the unmitigated audacity to jump up from behind my igloo (peekaboo) )
And he started into whippin’ on my favorite baby seal
With a lead-filled snowshoe)

I said, with a
Lead-
Filled
With a lead filled snowshoe
He said, peekaboo
I said, with a
Lead-
Filled
With a lead filled snowshoe
He said, peekaboo
He went right upside the head of my favorite baby seal
He went whap with a lead-filled snowshoe, and
He hit him on the nose and hit him on the fin, and he
That got me just about as evil as an eskimo boy can be. so I bent down
And I reached down, and I scooped down and I gathered up a generous
Mitten-ful of the deadly yellow snow

The deadly yellow snow, from right there where the huskies go!

Whereupon I proceeded to take that mittenful of the deadly yellow snow
Crystals and rub it all into his beady little eyes with a vigorous
Circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined
To take the place of the mudshark in your mythology
Here it goes,the circular motion, now rub it!

(here fido)

And then
In a fit of anger
I pounced

And I pounced again

Great googly moogly!

I jumped up and down on the chest of the him

I injured
The fur trapper

Well he was very upset, as you can understand
And rightly so, because the
Deadly yellow snow crystals had
Deprived him of his
Sight

And he stood up, and he looked around, and he said

I can’t see
I can’t see
Oh, woe is me
I can’t see

Well.....you know
I can’t see
Nothin’

He took a dog-doo snow cone and stuffed it in my right eye
He took a dog-doo snow cone and stuffed it in my other eye
And the husky wee-wee
I mean the doggie wee-wee
Has blinded me
And I can’t see
Temporarily

Well, the fur-trapper stood there, with his arms outstretched across the
Frozen white wasteland, trying to figure out what he was going to do about
His deflicted eyes. and it was at that precise moment that he remembered
And ancient eskimo legend, wherein it is written (on whatever it is that
They write it on up there) that if anything bad ever happens to your eyes
As the result of some sort of conflict with anyone named
Nanook,
The only way you can get it fixed up is to go

Trudging across the tundra
Mile after mile
Trudging across the tundra

Right down to the parish of st. alphonzo

[Toots]

8. No body is right all the time even Canada.

:shrug:

[chlamor]

9. I am for hunting your meat using hides

and living rightly within the fortunes and constraints of your bio-region. However, this seal clubbing is sick. The problem isn't "too many seals" it is in how homo sapiens sapiens has distorted the balance. Now if you don't mind I'll get back in my helicopter and commence to shooting those pesky wolves.