Every year about this time since i can remember, i have taken part in the annual ritual of ticking off the Canadians.
As not to disappoint, i am about to do it again and place any supporters of the brutal Canadian seal cull on a par with the sort of person who drinks puddles of rainwater.
I usually drag out my 'big book of why Seal Culling is wrong' and then get into a debate about it and quote statistics and such but it really doesn't move the argument on any further so what's the point?
Actually, there is a lot of point because Belgium and Germany have both implemented a ban on seal products and some of the UK supermarkets we have been urging to ban Canadian fish products for years have signed up to keep the fish labelled with "Produce of Canada" off it's shelves.
Maybe we are getting somewhere after all.
That's one in the eye for you lot of puddle drinking baby seal killers.
28 comments:
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Wrong. Bad. Evil. Cruel. Horrible.
And are we going to get commenters going, but why don't you get upset about chickens bla bla bla as if we are somehow required to paint a layer of logic over our feelings while killers go merrily on their way?
I second that. It's totally unnecessary cruelty.
As a proud Canadian, I am completely with you on this, Lucy. It's something that makes me embarassed to be Canadian.
I'm glad to hear the boycotting is going on. If you can't stop the supply, stop the demand.
Sorry to your spoil the party peeps - but I sympathise with the 'puddle drinkers' - indeed, I would argue that Canada needs to carry on culling.
The market for white seal pelt has taken a slump in the US and Europe, but the market is exploding in China and other Tiger nations, increasing the size of the cull to some 300,000 animals per year.
So what is it about the seal hunt that brings out such language? Why are human ends recast as 'Wrong. Bad. Evil. Cruel. Horrible'? The message appears to be clear, human beings are just plain sick and evil.
It's as if the arguments against seal hunting is taken from the point of view of the animals, rather than from a human perspective. From this POV wildlife management has become tranformed into one long agony.
Indeed, the lives of the 'puddle drinkers' from the northeast coast of Newfoundland are dependent on the hunt so thier small communities can survive - but their needs seem to be totally ignored.
Seal maybe beautiful creatures, and if they are to be killed it should be done as quickly as possible, no one wants unnecessary suffering. But, as long as people still want to buy seal pelt, then the 'puddle drinkers', sorry I meant Canadians should just carry on culling.
Don't fall into the "cuddly seal" trap that liberal media keeps setting. Those baby seals are cruel, vicious killers. They're the "Piranhas of the Shore"!!!!
Okay, not really, but it is amusing to picture 50 baby seals converging on one of those cullers and stripping his bones in 20 seconds, isn't it? Yeah, I thought so.
So it should be allowed to continue because there's a market for it? Good thinking! There's a market for heroin, so we should leave those Afghan poppy farmers alone. And there is a definite market for hot young American girls in South America - they make great sex slaves, y'know- so that's not a problem, as long as someone is willing to pay, right? I guess I've made my point. The fact that a business has a market does not make it an ethical business to be in.
As far as the economic needs of the locals go, I feel the same way when it was the loggers vs. the owls. The loggers- and cullers- are humans. They presumably have brains. They can learn. They can move. If the only thing they can be is seal bashers, then they fail to be human beings on a very fundamental level. Anyone can change what they do and where they live, humans are supposed to be adaptable like that. Seals and owls are NOT. They were created just to be seals and owls. Humans can create their situation, and anyone who whines that they can't should probably be granted the mercy of having their heads bashed in with a big stick.
Courtney's point wasn't that it's okay if there's market for it, but that there being a market for it means it isn't mere bloodlust and mindless carnage.
What's the diff between clubbing a harp seal for its pelt and eviscerating a screaming pig while it's still alive for its bacon?
Beyond that, Courtney speaks to the fact that the things humans do are for the benefit of humans, and until people can demonstrate a clear moral wrong in doing a certain thing, denying that thing devalues humans. What is the clear moral wrong in clubbing harp seals beyond the fact that it's mean and icky? Are they endangered? Do they suffer more than other animals we use? Is the method -- a sharp blow to the brain -- crueler than say putting a hunting arrow through its neck?
I don't mean to defend harp seal culling specifically, I don't like it either. But often I find myself making a choice between being rational and being popular. Boo.
Sometimes it just isn't about being popular or thinking too long or hard about an issue Don. Sometimes something is just plain wrong, cruel and unnecessary. This, to me, is one of those times.
Paula asked: And are we going to get commenters going, but why don't you get upset about chickens bla bla bla.
Don clocks in about 9 hours later with the answer - sort of. Only using pigs instead of chickens.
My feeling is this is just a brutally violent and basically senseless ritual. Slaughtering pigs and chickens may also be, but the only saving grace is that those animals are then used as food. The seal carcasses are simply discarded, or left as carrion on the ice.
But my bigger quetion is how, when, and why is rainwater puddle drinker an insult?
Ook ook
My big problem with the seal hunt specifically, aside from its inherent cruelty, is that it is completely unnecessary, as opposed to the killing of other animals. It is an industry that is predicated on the need for rich people to look fabulous.
Exactly... what was that anti fur-trade slogan from years ago?
"It takes 40 dumb animals to make a fur coat... but only one to wear it."
Something like that...
Yes, that is correct. There is a difference between using an entire animal for food and clothing, and whatever else, and using just PART of an animal for luxuries only.
Puddle Drinker? It is an insult that means someone who refuses to see things other than through their own tinted view regardless of sense or danger. For example, rain is made of water and puddles are made of water, so it is fine to drink them. I actually cleaned it up a little, the real term is piss drinker.
There is a difference between using an entire animal for food and clothing, and whatever else, and using just PART of an animal for luxuries only.
It's funny, I agree with this viscerally, but I must be in a contentious mood, because my more rational side sees the difference as artificial. Once the animal's dead it matters nothing to the animal how its parts are used. It's easy to see the need for humans to eat as outweighing the need for humans to wear fur, but really, no human needs to eat seal meat, indeed no human needs to eat meat at all. So I still go back to wondering what is it in our thinking that causes us to say it's not alright to kill something just for its fur. Almost as if at bottom, this is a religious argument, where we just KNOW right from wrong regardless of logic ... and personally, I'm done with religious arguments. See where they've got us so far. However, that doesn't mean I support the clubbing. What does that do to a person, to kill something with a club?
The nearest this blog ever gets to anything remotely religious is to make fun of the pope's dress sense.
I would submit that it does matter how much of the animal you use. I guess it depends whether you think just killing an animal for a fur coat and throwing the rest away is rational or not.
Good point. I for one don't.
I think the pope dresses funny because he's a German guy living in Italy and he just can't compete.
This whole debate does kind of remind me of a joke - does anyone remember a campaign against eating tuna because dolphins get caught up in the nets?
The thing is, campaigners couldn't really care less about the tuna because 1) tuna tastes really nice with salad, and 2) who's ever heard of a tuna having their own tv programme?
Dolphins are not only mammals but also seem to be able to think, while tuna is just fish. I'm not comfortable indiscriminately murdering thinking beings. I also feel that way about pigs, but not cows or chickens. This won't be logical enough for some, I know.
Paula's right.... it's even being established that they have a language, and may be more intelligent than we are, since there is no known dolphin equivalent of Bill O'Rielly.
When the American west was being stolen, oh I of course mean SETTLED, buffalo were slain by the thousands and just left to rot. Is that an act lacking moral weight, because it no longer mattered to the buffalo? Or is there a difference between killing something and using all its resources and killing something and NOT using all the resources because the HUMANS that bear the moral weight are still alive? Are we not intelligent enough to make such distinctions, or is the making of distinctions merely a pretense? If it's a pretense, then all killing is bad, is it not?
"This whole debate does kind of remind me of a joke - does anyone remember a campaign against eating tuna because dolphins get caught up in the nets?"
The campaign was against drift nets, not against eating tuna. People were being asked to boycott any tuna packager that bought fish from fisheries that used drift nets.
And for good reason.
The point I was making about the joke was (as Paula has highlighted) that no one gave a monkeys about the tuna. The 'plight' of tuna is overlooked.
Just in the same way the as the lives of the aboriginal people of Newfoundland and Labrador are overlooked. As we sit here in the nice comfort of our homes debating the rights and wrongs of seal hunting - everyone seems to have forgotten that, for the aboriginal people, seal hunting has meant survival in the basic sense of the word.
Joe and Paula may believe that dolphins have 'intelligence', but the aboriginal people of Canada have something far more important than intellect, they have families and communities to think about.
Seal hunting is in fact a critical resource for the survival of aboriginal communities in Canada. The seals have provided these communities with a resource that has aided these communities in their evolution, and is closely linked to their culture. The debate about seal hunting forgets all that.
The baby Harp seal is hunted because it is a sustainable resource that numbers some 5.4 milion - indeed, the laws governing seal hunting are based on three principles;
(1) A sustainable harvest based on solid science;
(2) An industry based on the full utilization of the animal;
(3) Humane harvesting methods with zero tolerance for any inhumane practices.
Yet, even though the industry is sustainable, benefits local people, and based on the FULL utilisation of the animal, some peolpe are still irrationally, opposed to it.
I just think we need to consider this debate from the POV of humans, who are far, far more important than any dumb seal, dolphin or tuna.
I don't believe that dolphin's are that clever - otherwise there wouldn't be the need to 'boycott' buying tuna, because 'intelligent' dolphin's would tell other dolphin's to avoid getting caught up in drift nets, wouldn't they?
Hard to draw a parallel between people that kill seals to survive and those that kill for the fashion industry. Never heard of anybody dying because they didn't have a seal fur coat.
You took the words out of my mouth, Lucy. The objection is to killing seals for the fashion industry.
" and is closely linked to their culture."
REALLY? Exactly how many centuries have they been relying on this trade to sustain them? How long has seal fur sales to Europe been vital to their existence? I find it difficult to believe that this has been a longstanding necessity for their existence. What did they do to survive before this trade became economically viable?
"'intelligent' dolphin's would tell other dolphin's to avoid getting caught up in drift nets, wouldn't they?"
Intelligent humans tell each other not to drive drunk, yet it happens, doesn't it?
Intelligent humans don't rely on just one thing to unsure the viability of their community or insure thier ability to feed their children. I said the same thing about lumberjacks, coal miners, and people who live on their "ancestral lands" and moan that they have to be on welfare because there's no work on those lands. If you are a thinking human being, you can adapt and change roads. If you can't do that, don't expect those of us who can to give a crap about your ability to survive.
So you want to disrupt the culture and economy of an entire people because you think fur-harvesting is a special case of animal usage that should not be allowed. Yet in your other cases, the disruption was caused by the loss of the resource; which in the case of harp seals is not on the horizon. In other words, you saying an objective economic necessity and a subjective moral opinion are equivalent.
We use animal parts for all kinds of things. That some animals happen to have parts that are particularly valued by human beings is hardly a strike against using them. Especially if the harvest is humane and leads to full utilization, as certified by Fisheries and Aquaculture.
("Humane" is a separate discussion but I'm ready to entertain it.)
I guess everyone has their peeves, Don. The Iraqi people weren't even doing THIS much, yet you supported the disruption of their culture and economy just fine, didn't you? I know, you thought there were WMD's there, but a lot of people DIDN'T, so it isn't as if you couldn't help being duped. Do you think that Afghan farmers should be allowed to continue growing opium, so that they can feed their kids, or is there a moral imperative to continue disrupting their culture and economy? Besides, no one has proposed going there and forcing a change. They're talking about other societies choosing to keep those products off of their shelves. Are you suggesting that these other countries don't have the right to decide what they will buy, or who they will trade with? Are they obligated to buy these furs because the people who sell them haven't diversified their economy? That would beg the question of whether or not our embargo against Cuba is morally sustainable, doesn't it? After all, we trade with other Communist dictatorships, don't we?
I have to wonder - if greenpeace or someone like that spray painted these seals so that their furs were useless.... would they kill as many so that they can eat?
The Iraq thing was complex and doesn't really apply. If a society might be exporting harm, intervention may be called for (it wasn't, we now see). But as far as Afghan opium, I think we should leave them alone, just as we should leave the Colombian coca farmers alone. That's because they are exporting to meet demand, not to explicitly do harm. Those problems should be dealt with where the demand is (i.e. here). We can decide to buy or not buy cocaine, heroin and seal fur. Whether or not people produce these things will depend on that decision. Flip side, no one's obligated to buy just because someone else's economy depends on it.
I oppose the Cuba embargo too, I think it's stupid.
Good question re spraying the fur. Since the animals are wild and no one's property, that is not an act of vandalism. Of course, if it succeeds and kills the market, it will inspire poverty. For that reason I think it would be wrong, defining a non-endangered animal as being of more importance than the people whose livelihood depends on it; for surely you see a difference between a people having pickup trucks and healthcare versus barely subsisting on seal meat. It all comes back again to our very subjective comparison between harvesting for food and harvesting for other human values, such as comfort or vanity. It's this subjectivity that raises the alarm.
"Flip side, no one's obligated to buy just because someone else's economy depends on it."
Then in the end, we agree!
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