CNN/AP: Seal hunters expected to kill 234,000 Wednesday

[DeepModem Mom]

Seal hunters expected to kill 234,000 Wednesday
Wednesday, April 12, 2006

ST. JOHN'S, Newfoundland (AP) -- The final leg of Canada's contentious seal hunt moved to the ice floes off northeastern Newfoundland and Labrador on Wednesday, with sealers expected to slaughter another 234,000 harp seal pups in just one day.

International animal-rights activists will be present to document the final phase of the annual cull, which the Canadian government insists is humane and sustainable, with a healthy population of more than 6 million harp seals.

One of the most prominent animal-rights activists, Rebecca Aldworth of the Humane Society of the United States, will not be on the ice, however, as the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans has accused her of disturbing the hunt and declined to issue her an observation permit.

"It's unthinkable that so many animals will die a horrific death in such a short space of time," Aldworth said in a news release.

She and two other HSUS observers were accused last month of coming within a 10-meter (33-foot) buffer zone between their inflatable boat and a sealing vessel, a claim she denies....

***

The hunters will kill and skin as many of the seals as they can Wednesday. There will be no hunting Thursday, while fisheries officials count the pelts to see if the quota has been met. The hunt will resume Friday if the quota has not been reached....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/04/12/seal.hunt.ap/index.html

[Terran1212]

1. Sad

[shanti]

2. sickening!

:mad: :grr:

[Lorien]

3. Disgusting. Pain, death and terror for so many innocent creatures

all because of human greed and vanity. Our "sustainable" population of 6.5 billion may never evolve. :-(

[ElsewheresDaughter]

81. f$%#kers........

[Barrett808]

4. Sea Shepherd: The Seven Deadly Sins of the Sealers

The Seven Deadly Sins of the Sealers – The Seven Heavenly Virtues of Seal Defenders
Commentary by Paul Watson
Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Now is it bihovely thyng to telle whiche been the sevene deedly synnes, this is to seyn, chiefaynes of synnes. Alle they renne in o lees, but in diverse manneres. Now been they cleped chieftaynes, for as muche as they been chief and spryng of alle othere synnes.
– Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Today is the eve of the great slaughter of the innocent.

Tomorrow is April 12th when the rapacious rifles of the Newfoundland sealers begin violently cracking and rumbling and disturbing the peace and serenity of the harp seal nurseries. Tomorrow Cocytus, the ninth circle of hell, will manifest itself upon the heaving ice floes off the grayish cold coast of Northern Newfoundland and Labrador.

From out of the ice-dusted mists will emerge the foreboding spectre of dark ships and men dressed in deathly black.

Tomorrow over two hundred thousand young and innocent seal pups will begin to die in horrific agonizing pain as lethal bullets tear with murderous savage fury through their small and fragile bodies, shredding organs and arteries, spewing their hot innocent blood into the frigid Labrador Sea and splattering it upon the pristine ice. Primitively vicious clubs will shatter soft tiny skulls as sealers dressed in black and besmeared with slimy blood, march arrogantly across the ice, kicking pups in the face, tearing the living skin off of small throbbing convulsing bodies, and transforming the home of the ice lovers from Greenland into a dark, chaotic cesspool of evil.

This is a vicious and tedious battle – this epic struggle to end the horrific slaughter of seal pups in Eastern Canada. It is a classic struggle between evil and good. A person does not need to be religious to know that defending life from death is innately good, and inflicting death and abject cruelty on such a massive scale, and especially to defenseless young sentient beings, is the very definition of evil.

So, we must remember that it does not matter how difficult it is, it does not matter how long it takes, what is important is seal defenders must never surrender to the insidious dark forces of incarnate and baneful cruelty and malignant ecological destruction.

These shameless men who inflict such gross destruction upon the moving ice and the deceitful politicians and gullible people who blindly support them are biblically evil. They are homo arrogantus mimicking their own perception of God as they smash in skulls, slit open young bellies, and violently penetrate creatures that have done them no harm.

These are men who kill not for food, not for survival, but for contemptuous vanity. They strip away life to artificially adorn human bodies with pelts that are far more beautiful in death than the living skin of the creatures wearing them.

They crusade against the laws of nature as they harness cold and sterile technology to destroy life efficiently, thoughtlessly, insensitively, and ignorantly.

These are men, who in their greed have overfished the seas, looting the waters of life as they plunder the fishes from the deep to convert into lucre. Now they seek vengeance upon their chosen scapegoat – the innocent baby seals.

Their stubborn pride lies like a dark veil upon their eyes, preventing them from seeing the iniquitous consequences of their greed, their rage, and their lust for the blood of the innocent.

These are men, who in their anger, preach a harsh hatred of the compassionate, and belittle the kindness of those who care for the lives of the seals.

Like ravenous demons conscripted by Lucifer, these heartless men, these seal killers, are never satisfied as they ravage the living bosom of the sea of life in a gluttonous frenzy of profiteering. They act like all life belongs to them, free for the taking, at their will. Armoured by their anthropocentric philosophy of human domination, all killing is sanctioned and all morality is simply bartered away for denial. They are the takers and they give nothing back.

Last year, I saw them pass us by, a convoy of wicked ignorance, as men stood on the blood and gore besmeared decks of boats being escorted through the ice by the powerful scarlet ships of the Canadian government. Like spoiled children, they hungrily followed the ice-breaker as it led them to new nurseries to destroy more helpless seal babies to vent their depraved savageness upon.

As they passed, they hooted like lunatics and made obscene gestures they thought would upset us. We were unpleasantly surprised when one sealer dropped his blood-stained pants and vented his lust at the sight of our female crew. It was one of the most truly bizarre sights that I had ever witnessed, a full-grown man, his pants around his ankles, standing in gore, pulling and jerking his penis as he wagged his tongue and drooled at the young women on our deck. And rather than look the fool to his comrades they applauded his fetish like it was normal behaviour. Perhaps in the outports of Newfoundland it is.

There was a time only a few short years ago when the clergy would see the sealing ships off with prayers that their decks would run red with blood. It always struck me as odd that men of the cloth would send killers off to destroy “kotik,” the Inuit word for seal that Labradorean missionary Sir Wilfred Grenfell once coined for the whitecoated pups in a linguistic effort to convey the meaning of the “Lamb of God” to a people who had never seen sheep.

It is odder still that a large powerful Canadian Coast Guard ice-breaker bearing the name of Sir Wilfred Grenfell now escorts the vile butchers through the floes to silence the lambs of the ice, and as it does, the ship itself crushes seal pups beneath its keel as Grenfell’s name reflects the ensanguined death throes of screaming infants ground to a bloody pulp in the ice below.

Malevolence is given free rein when harnessed to power and with the absolution granted by the Canadian Parliament, the sealers have turned the floes into killing grounds where none may bear witness to the horrors sanctified by law without permission. The law has legitimized shame and hoisted the flags of pride over the domain of terror inflicted on the ice.

Pride, the venal sin from which all other sins arise, is the driving malignant force behind the massive massacre of the innocents. The sealers vainly stride across the ice like it is their realm of righteousness, where the slaughter has become ritualistic and the urge to kill pulses through their veins like some cancerous demonic perversion that robs them of mercy, respect, and love.

The slaughter of the seals is an annual baptism of blood, where the killers, according to Magdalen Island sealer Pol Chantraine, often drink the living blood from the heart of their first victim and paint their faces with the hot, salty, virgin liquid of life, mumbling semi-paganistic chants of becoming one with the ice as blood drips down and congeals like grease onto their silver and gold crucifixes.

It is this perversion that they proudly indulge and defend.

And it is this excessive Pride that drives the Gluttony that has already destroyed the cod. It is this unyielding Pride that compels them to take more than they need to feed their insatiable Greed. It is this Pride that drives their sadistic Lust to kill. It is this Pride that prevents them from evolving, from changing, from adapting to civilized standards and norms because Pride fosters a laziness of spirit and a Slothful behaviour that starves them of morality. It is this Pride that provokes their anger towards those who defend life, promote kindness and seek alternatives to willful slaughter.

Deviant demons of death slandering angels of life and compassion.

Government control is cheaply given because it can be had by the devious by giving nothing and exploiting the sin of Pride towards achieving political deviltry. Men of wealth like John Crosbie, Danny Williams, and Bill Barry can garner votes and profits from the gullibility of those who use and abuse them for their own self-serving ends.

Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi, one of the most influential paragons of kindness in the history of social and political activism, once wrote that you cannot have commerce without morality.

I was led to oppose the slaughter of seals as a young boy in New Brunswick by none other that Albert Swietzer, the honourary president of the Kindness Club, an organization established by Aida Flemming, the wife of the former Conservative Premier of New Brunswick, Sir Hugh John Flemming.

It was there that I learned to live in accordance with what some refer to as the heavenly virtues, i.e. the four Cardinal virtues of Prudence, Temperance, Courage, and Justice with the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity.

It is these virtues that drive the movement to defend the seals and it is these virtues that the sealers and their supporters attack us for.

We have faith and we have hope that the killing of the seals can be abolished and it is the charity of those who care for the seals that will make this possible. We have the courage to go to the ice, to take to the airwaves and to debate and confront the killers of baby seals. Our approach is prudent, temperate, and motivated by a desire to achieve justice for the seals.

Our temperance is apparent in the restraint we must exercise to not answer violence with violence, and thus we have had to take the blows, endure the beatings, and suffer incarceration without reprisal or justice.

We who defend the seals are not like those who destroy them. We practice non-violence and yet they use the very fact of refusal to eat meat and our own kindness as barbs to goad and humiliate us as if they think to shame us with our own virtues.

These narcistic necrovores ridicule veganism as they gnaw and devour long-dead decaying corpses of sentient creatures, consuming carrion like base scavengers as they proudly compare their butchery to the slaughter of the lambs and the battering of chickens.

Those who defend the seals, like those who defend other species, who defend habitats, who defend children, and who champion the innocent, the meek, and the peaceful are gentle warriors representing the virtue of goodness over the foul and festering vice of evil.

Seal defenders have the moral high ground because we do not inflict or advocate violence. We do not contribute to suffering and death, and we contribute our bodies, our resources, and our time to making this a better world for all of life.

This planet does not belong to those who destroy it. They are the greedy who steal from their children. The planet belongs to those who live, respect and honour, protect and defend life.
This struggle really is between good and evil. One look upon the ice floes of Eastern Canada where the blood lies in steaming pools of gore upon the bluish white mantle of the ice, where the screams of the innocent fill the air as heavy booted thugs with blackened hearts, armed with spiked clubs transform the innocence of the world of newly born creatures into a perdition of unimaginable suffering as they slaughter heaven’s lamb’s, Grenfell’s kotik’s, in an insane orgy of murderous mutilation and remorseless cruelty.

Over the next week, the pathetic little corpses whose large eyes so recently reflected the wonder of the living world will once again litter vast expanses of ice, and spirals of blood will radiate out from the killing boats. The clean virgin air will stink of diesel fumes, stale beer, tobacco, and human sweat. As these foul smells drift across and defile the ice, it will send a ripple of fear across the face of the floes, touching each and every seal with the message that the pristine and pure world of ice, the nursery floes of the harp seals is being invaded once again by a monstrous foe. Crusaders doused in the stench of viciousness will begin once again, their annual rampage of self-indulgence, caring nothing for their victims, and dismissing those who dare to question their deceitful and cruel displays of provincial pride.
The seal defenders have one objective – to stop the killing, to silence the thud of the clubs and the crack of the rifles – to defend innocence and to protect life.

This is really a struggle between good and evil – between those who would take life and those who would defend it.

For the sake of all those sentient beings who will be born upon this Earth for years to come, we must prevail. We can prevail and we will prevail.

This Article may be freely distributed and/or published.

(more)

http://seashepherd.org/editorials/editorial_060411_1.html

[DeepModem Mom]

5. Thanks for this, Barrett. nt

[Barrett808]

10. This is definitely high on my list of causes

Thank you for posting the story.

[admsitio]

6. TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE

This canada's massive seal hunt is horrible and sad.325000 seals will be killed , i'ts sad sad sad,
Did we can stop this?

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

30. kick kick kick kick kick kick kick kick kick kick kick kick kick kick

:kick:

to sanity

:toast:

[leftchick]

7. International Fund For Animal Welfare is there!

https://www.kintera.org/atf/cf/{58777513-F1E2-4E07-82D5-3C22F4AD1197}/Header.jpg


http://www.stopthesealhunt.ca/site/pp.asp?c=dhKPI1PFIqE&b=1498643

I love these people and what they do. I donate as often as I can....

http://www.stopthesealhunt.co.uk/atf/cf/{903F64A9-8C2A-40AC-B584-771C1DD68DCE}/robbie_3_small.jpg

http://www.stopthesealhunt.com/atf/cf/{1AE979E3-67B2-4AC0-A26D-17D11CF1EAB6}/REGINA03-21.JPG

http://www.stopthesealhunt.ca/site/pp.asp?c=dhKPI1PFIqE&b=1477703

http://www.stopthesealhunt.com/atf/cf/{1AE979E3-67B2-4AC0-A26D-17D11CF1EAB6}/action5.jpg

You can make a donation here....

https://www.kintera.org/site/apps/ka/sd/donor.asp?c=dhKPI1PFIqE&b=446823&en=gkJPK0MPInKSL0OMImIUL1OKLdI0LlMWLlKWLaOULmI1LaNUKyE

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ThsMchneKilsFascists]

9. yeah whatever

i hope you're as ready to dance on the grave of a sushi chef.

[livvy]

11. This is one of the sickest hunts...

There are an awful lot of sick things that people do to animals, (not to mention each other), but for some reason this just seems to be one of the sickest. To do what they do to helpless baby seals, is just beyond reason for a "civilized" society. There is something wrong with a person that can bludgeon a helpless animal. I don't care how much money you can make from their death, it is sick.

[ConcernedCanuk]

12. North America was mainly developed on the fur trade centuries ago

.
.
.

Fox, Beaver, mink and so on were trapped with leg traps, languishing for days until the trapper went to retrieve them, some only finding a leg as fox were known to chew their leg off to get out of the trap.

Beaver trapping is still ongoing, as are fox -

Buffalo were killed in massive hunts in the US, almost to extinction, and carcasses and hides left to rot, the plunder being just their tongues.

We hunt deer, moose, small game like rabbits and birds and so on - many get wounded but not killed, and die later as a result of their wounds.

So I find this hoopla about "baby" seals a bit out of proportion.

Anyone ever eat "Calf's LIver"? - that's a baby cow

or "veal"

again, a baby cow

granted, they don't get clubbed to death - they get their throats slashed and bleed to death . .

same with pigs - Bacon anyone?

I'll take a few whacks on the head instead

Chickens? - well we just cut their heads off

And the seals are NOT just killed for the pelts, seal oil is a rising market for pharmaceutical companies, and the natives harvest the meat and use the bones for tools and carvings -

Seal population is increasing by 700,000 per year, so a harvest of under 400,000 does not threaten their existence.

End of rant . . . .

[theHandpuppet]

14. Straight from the Newfoundland/Labrador News...

http://www.cbc.ca/nl/story/nf-hunt-front-20060412.html

(excerpt)

Demand for pelts remains strong

Despite the protests, markets for seal products – especially the pelts – remain strong. Sealers have recently been earning more than $70 per pelt.
The strongest markets for the pelts are in northern Europe, particularly in Norway.

[brentspeak]

13. Are things that bad in Newfoundland and Labrador

that people have to rely on bludgeoning seals to make a living?

[Kagemusha]

15. Actually, um, yeah.

For the fishing communities there, um, yeah. If it wasn't for welfare cheques a lot of communities there and around the coasts of Atlantic Canada would simply cease to exist.

That said, when I finally read that CNN article to the end, they say last year's hunt earned $14.4 million ($Can). For people to act like slim pickings like that are a big deal, a big help, perhaps you can appreciate just how hollow the economy is there with the collapse of the cod fishery and related troubles. Granted man collectively was largely responsible for that collapse, but that does not make life there fun.

At the very least they bludgeon seals to supplement otherwise low incomes.

[flvegan]

16. Yet they turned down an offer of $16 million in cash this year

didn't they?

How much did the Canadian govt spend to help sponsor this grotesque event, again?

[Kagemusha]

17. Unfortunately I really don't know anything about either of those

An offer of $16 mil in cash, or the government spending $ to sponsor this event. I never heard of either.

$16 mil from who?... Not from the new Harper administration in Canada, I would think.

[flvegan]

18. Obviously.

You should maybe keep up to date on something you so vehemently support here.

[Kagemusha]

19. Okay. I looked it up. It reads like a bad joke.

So let me get this straight... a US businesswoman offers the CANADIAN GOVERNMENT $16 million if it will stop the seal hunt. That's 16 milion to be distributed at the discretion of the government. That's 16 million that isn't being offered to the seal hunters themselves or to poor economic communities directly.

If we were discussing Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority this idea would be laughed off the Internet.

Edit #2: Furthermore, the woman says she was "prepared to raise" 16 million, not that she had it. Further, the response below seems pretty um, obvious and natural:

'Steven Outhouse, spokesman for Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn, said the federal government would not be taking Kangas up on her offer.

"Besides the fact that most within the industry say it's worth more than $16 million . . . and notwithstanding the fact that this is an annual income, I don't know whether she was planning to offer $16 million a year for the next decade or if this was a one-time deal or what have you," he said. '

Um, obviously.

And I don't even think this woman was really prepared to raise that 16 million for even one year. I've seen a lot of offers that bank on the other party's refusal. This sure looks like it to me.

Are you happy now that you made me dig this up despite your intellectually hollow refusal to provide even the slightest assistance?

[flvegan]

20. I am, yes.

Because, as you stated, nobody looked into it. It was turned down on it's face.

Wonder why...

BTW, what you think or don't think, offers nothing in reference. Regardless of what you've "seen" as far as a "lot of offers" right?

Supporting the inhumane seal slaughter isn't something to run from. Embrace it. Scream it from the mountaintops...it's a good thing, right????

My "intellectually hollow refusal" helps you back up my point. So yes, I'm happy. Thanks.

[Kagemusha]

22. If that woman wants to stop the hunt she should show 'em the money.

Not say agree and I promise to ask people to donate money once you've done what we want you to do anyway which will rob everyone of all motivation to actually donate that money.

I mean, my god, 16 million or... ok they say it's worth more than that. 20 million (Canadian!) per year, every year, to stop killing seals. All the environmentalists in the world can't come up with that? You've gotta just give empty promises and try to get the seal hunting stopped on the cheap? Silly. Dumb. Stupid.

My supporting the inhumane slaughter is a construction of your own mind. I'd just as well the Canadian government hand over $20 million and have the seals left alone. If what you say about subsidies is true, it's probably cheaper in the long run. It's unfortunate that it sounds like law regarding First Nations will prevent any government from stopping the seal hunt if it's done by First Nations people. That's a pretty bad curveball.

It just sickens me to see how people like you don't give two cents about the ecological issues. And everyone who doesn't agree with you has to be a fanatic lover of seal clubbing like it ought to be an Olympic sport. In your mind only...

[flvegan]

23. You support it

fight for it, argue for it.

Not a construction of my mind.

The offer was made, and they turned it down without dialogue. Speaks pretty loudly to me.

[Kagemusha]

25. That offer is a joke and not the slightest bit credible.

I wanted to educate the likes of you in why your arguments aren't working on genuine supporters of the seal hunt. Mainly, being highly disingenuous with all sorts of false facts and not really caring about them being false because it's not a scientific issue, it's a moral issue.

I'm fighting against your flawed arguments against the hunt, not for the hunt. But I don't expect anyone to be impressed. Big. Deal.

But I mean, really.

This offer is presented as a con. "Don't kill that seal and I'll give you $20." <seal slips into water> "So where's my $20?" "Well the seal's gone, I don't actually need to give you the $20. It's not like you're a good person in the first place so you don't deserve it..." <walks off>

You're expecting Canadian ministers to not just be evil greedy people. You're expecting them to be easy marks and suckers. You are asking too much of evil greedy people to expect them to be marks and suckers.

And that is why you will fail.

[flvegan]

26. Says you

strawman.

Thanks for the laugh.

Let's talk of this in another couple years. I have money on the death of this barbaric hunt.

Support it all you want, though. Humanity has it's bounds in some.

[Kagemusha]

27. Fine. Not like we don't have bigger problems anyway

That little Iraq thing, that little Iran thing, that stuff. Barbaric or not, that guy who said seals are just numbers and statistics to me had a point. They sort of are. I don't kill them, I don't eat them, I don't profit from them, and I don't want to. I'm a numbers guy for some things. War dead. Richment % of uranium. Mosques blown up. That stuff. I don't let passion get in the way of seeing the bigger picture.

And the bigger picture is that however wrong the hunt is, it's not the freaking end of the world. Or of marine life. Or of seals.

[flvegan]

29. My compassion

doesn't have boundaries.

Sorry.

[OneBlueSky]

21. thre are some things that are just plain morally wrong . . .

and this is one of them . . . when God gave man dominion over the beasts, I doubt that s/he meant for us to slaughter them so rich ladies can wear their fur . . . this is a prime example of how disgustingly evil humankind can be when we put our minds to it . . .

[Kagemusha]

24. At one time it was that or a fig leaf.

Obviously there are substitutes in the modern world... but that God giving man dominion thing wasn't in the modern era.

[flvegan]

28. Check your Hebrew

on that "Dominion" thing, too.

[Moderator]

31. kick

[Omaha Steve]

32. Mob Prevents Observation of Seal Hunt

HSUS Seal Watch Team Under Siege in Canada - Mob Prevents Observation of Seal Hunt

April 13, 2006

BLANC SABLON, QUEBEC – The Humane Society of the United States and the Franz Weber Foundation seal hunt observation team, along with a member of the European Parliament and several independent journalists, are currently under threat of physical violence and have taken refuge in their rooms at the Four Seasons Inn. A growing mob estimated at nearly 60 people has gathered outside the hotel and is refusing to let the team leave. Earlier this morning, while attempting to drive to their helicopters, a car containing team members and four journalists was run off the road into a ditch. The vehicle sustained damage but there were no injuries.

Full story: http://www.hsus.org/press_and_publications/press_releases/hsus_seal_watch_team_under.html

[Agony]

33. A dying industry!??

This has been going on a long for an industry supposedly in trouble! The CBC has a timeline news archive about "the seal hunt", called a dying industry in 1958. Wow, that sure was a bad analysis!

A dying industry
As the market for seal products declines, CBC looks at the history and traditions of the seal hunt. (00:14:21)
3/14/1958

Below is a link to the whole CBC news archive/timeline on the subject. There is a strong movement in Greenland in support of the hunt. It was a huge topic of discussion among indigenous people in the 80's when I lived in the far north (not many other people were paying attention.

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDCC-1-73-986/politics_economy/seal_hunt/

[debbierlus]

34. How evil do you get?

Clubbing a baby seal to death...

FOR WHAT?

A coat?

Leave the seals ALONE.

What kind of monster could club a seal?

[applegrove]

74. I'll agree that selling fur is crass and ugly. I don't always remember

that when I buy boots or a trinket. I will try to avoid real fur.

But I truly do not believe that the seal hunt would stop if the fur was no longer sold. That didn't happen a decade ago (when the bans came in).

[applegrove]

35. No they are killing them to cut down on the seal population. It is a cull.

And most use guns at this point. And if seals were not sea animals they would only kill the mommies & daddies like they do when WE manage all other large animal interaction with humans and especially farms(like wolves, bears, elk, cariboo, deer, gophers, vermin, etc.).

These people have very little chance of livelihood in the future if the cod doesn't come back. They will be forced to work in Alberta to dig tar sands that then will be cooked. Would you want to live fishing or working under the biggest stove of boiling oil the world has ever seen?

These people know what it means. They fish every day so that you get fish three times a week. They kill every day. That is their livelihood. Except it is nicer when it is called fishing somehow. It is less anticeptic than putting beef on a cattle car and sending it to the slaughterhouse. But just like hunting.. it is better for the environment than eating cows. Even if they don't eat the seal pups. By culling to help the fishing industry. Which results in fish for them 8 days a week and fish for you 3.

And the fish they are after by killing seals the only way they can (culling), those fish live in seas. Unlike that orange shit you eat when you order salmon. That puppy spent its days in a cage with 100,000 other salmon eating other baby salmon, so that its skin & insides turned to gray (wasn't eating stream and ocean stuff). So when the salmon farmers harvest the salmon on your plate, they inject the sad creatures with orange die so you will like it. At least these fish will get to waddle in the sea. The fish they are trying to manage by culling the seal population the only way you can these days (perhaps we will have seal heat-seeking underwater missiles some day and can manage them like we do deer, bear, and all other land mammals that we manage with bullets).

Want to stop seal pup culling? Find a way to cull the seal population some other way.

[flvegan]

37. Or

the overfishing of cod could stop.

I also have yet to see unbiased statistics on the manner of death (gun v. hakapik). I would argue that "most" is probably inaccurate.

[applegrove]

38. Cod fishing has stopped. It was horribly managed environmentally,

politics got in the way. And international trawlers. And the Cod went caput. 20 years ago. Now they wait and hope and cannot touch cod. In hopes that it will come back. But the international ships just offshore can. And the seals can. And that is the issue.

And this time, the fishermen and people of the communities are loath to let "politics" get in the way of the "return of the cod" or "management of the fishery".

[Submariner]

56. "return of the cod"

Probably not in our lifetime, maybe the next. With an ever exploding worldwide human population, more pressures will be put on cod fisheries, directly, or indirectly via by-catch or damage to important nursery area habitats like portions of Georges Bank. The Canadians should not put hope that cod stocks will rebound in a decade or two, or three. That is just wishful thinking.

[northofdenali]

40. Not to disagree with your post except -

Wild Alaska salmon, the best-managed fishery in the world, is still the best eating!!


Don't buy the other stuff. It isn't the same.

[applegrove]

42. Exactly. The best managed fishery. Like any eco-system that is prayed

heavily upon by humans... it needs to be taken care of. No doubt fresh salmon is magwonderfully delicious.

[northofdenali]

46. Now for something you really won't believe -

we have Ted Stevens (yes, Uncle Asshole Ted) to thank for the majority of it. The only thing he's ever done that's worthwhile.

[fla nocount]

45. Bless you from an honorary Newfie.

There are no easy explanations for this industry that is as old as the territories. I'll make no excuses for the practice yet I do understand it as necessary and practical in the minds of its participants.

Meat does not come from little white styrofoam trays and coats not from racks at the local habadashary. 19th century meets 21st is more like it.

I love both the seals and those who utilize them. Look at my avatar....I just wish that there were a clean way to resolve the issue. Plainly in our present situation there is no need for what many consider the barbarity of the seal hunt, but still, if push were to come to shove and under other circumstances I were to see a seal wearing MY coat....well, I might feel compelled to relieve it of it's burden.

It's the commercialism that muddles the issue. If the seal is wearing MY coat.......well, that's one thing. But, if he's wearing the coat that I might sell to others, that's called being assimilated into the white man's ways. That is barbarity.

[Lorien]

48. There's no honor in killing for vanity or greed in my book. Never.

The fur industry is obscene and absurd. Women spend millions to remove hair from their bodies, then they pay thousands to dress up like a fucking yeti? Where's the logic there? And I don't want to hear about how "warm" fur is; science has moved us far beyond that.

The fact that our species still engages in such acts while still uses such poor excuses like "managing the environment" while there are 6.5 BILLION of us on the planet (an amount that will DOUBLE in 20 years) just goes to show how far we have yet to evolve. We won't have the chance, though. The planet we have treated with so much brutality will soon betray our entire species.

[fla nocount]

63. No argument from me sister, you are right. Our mother will reject us

not for lack of love, but of necessity and a sense of priority. Things have changed since I was born but more important, things have changed since the old ladies who instilled my values were born.

[LeftyMom]

51. Cod comprises only 1.5% of the seals' diets

A much larger portion of thier diet is predatory fish that eat the juvenile cod. Additionally, the decay of the seals' bodies (which are generally left to rot once thier skins and penises are removed) contributes to bacterial overgrowth and hypoxic conditions which further endanger cod numbers.

Further destablizing the ecosystem will not restore the cod fishery.

[Hotler]

60. You have to be a mean hateful person to kill like that.

All day long over and over. Yeah, real men they are. Hey mister! How is the seal screaming working for you? Getting any real sleep at night you miserable excuse for a human being.

[LeftyMom]

61. You really have to wonder about anybody who could do that.

:scared:

[saigon68]

66. They could join Black Water and go to Iraq-Nam for $2,000.00 a day

And kill a few Iraqi Children by bashing their brains in with their Cute Pike Hooks or whatever the fuck you call those things that split the harp seals wide open.

But, maybe not--- because they are cowards, and the Iraqi Resistance Forces would eat their asses for lunch.

[george_maniakes]

75. gimme a break

Are you for real? Your comparing the killing of children to the killing of seals? Jeez good thing calves didnt have big glassy eyes or i'd be hassled for eating a bloody steak. The only people from north america who would know anything about killing iraqi children would be Americans. If you feel this strongly about the seal hunt, i hope you feel just as strong about the hunting of other forms of life you judge too young to be killed. I hate the disrespectful destruction of life, but i'm not freakin out about the other industries that subject life forms to a short and shitty life for human benefit, so im just going to lump the seal industry with all those other ones, and state that i would prefer more respect toward the handling of the lifeforms we eat or wear or derive some benefit from. But no way am i going to make a Newfoundlander feel ashamed for hunting seals if he does it in a respectful fashion.

[saigon68]

90. Enjoy your stay, I have a feeling It will be brief

I know a couple of things about hunting. This is not hunting , it is a pure blood lust evil, pure evil

This is cold blooded slaughter for $$$

It is about as vile and disgusting as anything humans have ever engaged in.

[LeftyMom]

92. I do.

Killing an animal that deserves and wants to live is horrible whether that animal has flippers or feet.

Anyhow, there's no way to crush an animal's skull "in a respectful fashion."

[mike_c]

57. stop over-harvesting cod....

Prior to the beginning of the seal hunt there was plenty of cod and higher seal populations than at present. Cod was not a limiting resource so humans and seals were not competitors. What's different now? Human fishing pressure has increased beyond sustainable levels-- way beyond-- so seals and humans compete for what has become a scarce resource. Seals are not responsible for fisheries decline-- humans are, and only controlling human behavior will help restore healthy fisheries.

Furthermore, the seal hunt began as part of the fur industry-- culling the seal population to limit competition for fish is a rationalization for CONTINUING a barbaric practice, not for performing it in the first place. In any event the rationalization is hollow-- humans are responsible for pressure on the cod fishery, not seals.

[tabasco]

65. It's amazing how animals have survived through the eons

without humans clubbing them to cull their population.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

89. lol

it's true.

somehow we know better, don't we.

[Joey Liberal]

36. A mob of cowards n.t

[Beaverhausen]

39. Just what does this mob think they need to hide from the observers?

If the hunt is "humane" and "necessary" what is it they want to keep the observers from seeing?

[applegrove]

43. They want to stop politics. Cause they know politics killed the cod

industry to begin with. They have lived and learned. Science is science. Popular opinion is something else.

[Maccagirl]

49. Surrounding a hotel and running people off the road

isn't going to win friends and influence people, IMO.

[Baclava]

41. They want to hide it from the press...

...the above article continued...

"We are appalled by these violent tactics used by the local citizens in an attempt to prevent our team from documenting the cruelty of the seal hunt," said Dr. John Grandy, HSUS senior vice president. "Our team is there as peaceful observers and they should not have to fear for their safety. This is the second incident where the team has been physically placed in danger—the first time was during the Gulf hunt when their boat was rammed by a sealing vessel."

Grandy continued: "We cannot understand why the Canadian government is allowing these people to break the law and endanger lives but revoking our team members' permits and infringing on their rights. This is a terrible injustice and Canada should be ashamed."

"After all, the tragedy here is the cruel slaughter of the seals and having sealers try to hide it from the world only compounds the grievous wrongs," Grandy said

[judaspriestess]

44. words cant even describe the sadness I feel

:cry:

why do people have to be so fucking cruel. if this IS necessary just shoot the animal. don't club it to death and make it suffer. Too many fucking people in this world ie overpopulation if you ask me.

[Lorien]

47. Yep, if they were serious about balancing the environment

then they would address the world's problem of overpopulation of the HUMAN species; the single most destructive species on earth. Sex ed, empowering the world's women, access to birth control and encouraging lower birth rates with an emphasis on quality child care and education over quantity of children. A taxi driver from Bangladesh once told me why he had to move to America; he didn't want his own two children to have a dozen uneducated children of their own just because it was the cultural norm; he wanted them to only have one or two children each-and to put all their resources and energy into their education. "This is how you break the cycle of poverty" he said. Wise man.

The answer to a healthy environment without cruelty and suffering is zero population growth among our own species.

[Harper_is_Bush]

50. That's what happens when people get tired of being lied about I guess.

:nopity: for HSUS.

[LeftyMom]

52. Way to defend the law-breaking thugs

They like to rough up the observers out there (even the women and the old men.) Do you cheer that too?

[Harper_is_Bush]

53. I'm not defending the seal-protesters.

[Name removed]

54. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Barrett808]

58. Which statements by HSUS are you describing as "lies"?

The HSUS position seems pretty unassailable. To my mind, it's the Canadian government's and the sealers' positions that are questionable.

[laheina]

69. Nice documentation.

No augment, no testimonial, no links. Just throw out some bait.

[Barrett808]

55. Sea Shepherd: Seal Defenders Under Assault in Quebec

Seal Defenders Under Assault in Quebec
04/13/2006
1400 Hours EST

Seal defenders and reporters are under siege in the Four Seasons Inn Blanc Sablon, Quebec.

Crews from the Humane Society of the United States and the Franz Webber Foundation of Switzerland are being held captive in their hotel rooms as police remain uncooperative.

A truck driven by a seal hunt supporter deliberately rammed a van carrying seal defenders and reporters. Tensions are rising and seal hunt supporters are threatening the lives of those in the hotel.

The seal defenders cannot reach the airport and cannot leave because of threats of violence and assaults against anyone who attempts to leave.

The situation is extremely dangerous. It is a mob mentality outside the hotel very similar to 1995 in the Magdalen Islands when Sea Shepherd crewmembers were assaulted by an angry mob of 300 drunken sealers. On that occasion, Captain Paul Watson was viciously beaten, Actor Martin Sheen was threatened with lynching, and reporters were assaulted and their cameras were broken and stolen. It was only with the arrival of a SWAT team from the Quebec Provincial Police that the seal defenders were allowed to depart.

The police in Blanc Sablon are being irresponsible in not controlling the mob of hunt supporters and appear to be complicit with their behavior.

http://seashepherd.org/news/media_060413_3.html

[wordpix2]

68. yes, your life will be threatened if you try to defend animals or stop the

bulldozers. This seal "harvest" aka slaughter is unsustainable and should be stoppped. The Quebecois who are threateneing the lives of activists and journalists are neanderthals. I understand it's depressed in the far north but they need to get a grip and develop some sustainable industries like making biofuel out of wood chips or something.

[Barrett808]

59. BBC: Hunters 'blockade' seal activists

Anti-seal hunt activists in Canada say fishermen and hunters have trapped them in their hotel in Quebec to stop them documenting a cull.

About a dozen activists and journalists say some 60 angry locals prevented them from leaving the hotel in Blanc-Sablon, on the border with Newfoundland.

Members of Humane Society International said that earlier their van had been run off the road.

About 325,000 harp seal pups will be shot or beaten in the annual cull.

The Humane Society says the event is barbaric and wants it stopped.

The Canadian government says the cull, on ice floes off the Atlantic coast, is humane and keeps the six-million harp seal population in check.

(more)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4908756.stm

The story's getting pretty wide distribution:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&spell=1&tab=wn&q=seal+hunt+quebec&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d

[MasonJar]

62. Excuse me! Why is it our right to cull the seal population? And

you notice that they are not killing adults who can have children; they are killing babies for profit. This is indeed another example of the evil of mankind. I do not see man doing anything to keep its population under control, and it is man which is taking over the earth's surface and using up its resources. What is fair about killing a helpless infant, which is innocently glad to see you.

[laheina]

70. There's nothing fair about it.

This "hunt" is morally bankrupt.

The only reasons that they kill the babies are that they have more marketable coats and they are easier to get.

[Minstrel Boy]

64. a report from Canadian Press:

Seal hunt supporters in Quebec and Labrador confront animal-rights protesters

BLANC-SABLON, Que. (CP) - Supporters of Atlantic Canada's annual seal hunt made life miserable, and potentially dangerous, for animal rights activists who insisted Thursday they were only trying to document the start of the slaughter off the coast of southern Labrador.

About 80 residents in the eastern Quebec town of Blanc-Sablon, near the Labrador border, surrounded a small hotel when they learned that foreign journalists and members of the Humane Society of the United States were staying there.

Late in the day officers with the Quebec provincial police escorted the 15 activists, reporters and photographers from the hotel and drove them in police vans to a nearby airport. They arrived safely. Rebecca Aldworth, a society spokeswoman staying at the hotel, said a charter airplane was hired to fly the group to an undisclosed location.

Yvonne Jones, the member of the provincial legislature for the Labrador district of Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, disputed claims that the animal-rights activists were in danger. "I've been there the whole morning and I have not seen one thing that would be considered to be violent or threatening in any way," Jones told the St. John's Telegram from Blanc-Sablon. "This is a very peaceful protest."

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=3b2e7e77-dd57-4596-ad7a-74e434cc62d5&k=13384

It won't be popular here, but I'd rather stand with the workers of a depressed region on this one, than with the foreign journalists and activists.

[laheina]

71. All things being equal, I would agree with your comment,

but it is not an either or situation. I don't have to say "it's either the poor farmers in Central America OR the rain forest."

There are better solutions here than skinning baby animals alive. The industry people don't want to here them, and the politicians are too busy playing to industry.

[Omaha Steve]

67. Why did Canada turn down the $16 mill offer to end the slaughter?

It was offered and rejected. Each hunter would have the sale $ in pocket, without going out on the ice to kill.

http://www.seashepherd.org/news/media_060404_1.html

04/04/2006 printer-friendly version

Cathy Kangas Offers Canada $16 Million to End Seal Hunt

Last year the Canadian seal slaughter realized $16 million in income to East Coast seal killers.

This year, Sea Shepherd member and supporter Kathy Kangas has offered $16 million to compensate the sealers if they do not kill seals.

Kangas, the CEO and Founder of PRAI Beauty a global beauty company, has made the offer in a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

"If you stop this year's hunt immediately, we will provide you with the $16 million to be distributed at your discretion," said Kangas.

Ms. Kangas also proposed working with the Canadian government to institute a program to buy back existing fishing licenses and launch a program of eco-tourism in Northeastern Canada to replace the seal hunt. "Canadian fishermen could earn more money serving as park rangers for high end tours to Canada to see the beautiful spectacle of seals giving birth on the ice floes," she noted. She said that whale-watching tours in Canada have been very successful attracting visitors.

"We are providing you with an alternative to what Paul McCartney called 'a stain on the character of the Canadian people.' If this is really simply an economic problem, then take our offer," Mrs. Kangas stated in her letter. The money, she pointed out, will be raised from private citizens and animal protection groups worldwide.

Mrs. Kangas added, "With the worldwide Boycott of Canadian Seafood, the television coverage of baby seals being clubbed to death for their pelts, and the involvement of high-profile celebrities such as Heather and Paul McCartney and Brigitte Bardot, one would think that Stephen Harper would welcome an economic solution to the seal hunt. We are willing to negotiate in good faith. However, should he choose to ignore my letter and continue with the hunt, we need to ask the world what will it take for Canada to end this barbaric practice?"

Through the Internet and home shopping networks, she created "Beauty With A Cause." Under this program, her company contributes a portion of its proceeds every month to a different animal protection organization.

A copy of Mrs. Kangas' letter to Prime Minister Harper is below:

March 21, 2006

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada, KIA O42

Dear Prime Minister Harper:
Your government has repeatedly stated that the $16 million realized from the slaughter of Canadian baby seals is vital to the fishing communities of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland. If you stop this year's hunt immediately, we will provide you with this $16 million to be distributed at your discretion.

Furthermore, we will work with your government to institute a program to buy back the fishing licenses and begin a program of eco-tourism in Northeastern Canada, which would replace the seal hunt. Through this program, high-end tour companies, such as Abercrombie & Kent, would provide opportunities for its customers to see the beautiful spectacle of seals giving birth on the ice floes. This could be a whole new source of revenue for the region and fishermen could serve as Park Rangers showing the seals and protecting them.

The eyes of the world will be on Canada when the seal hunt begins. We are providing you with an alternative to what Paul McCartney called "a stain on the character of the Canadian people." If this is really simply an economic problem, then take our offer. The money is being raised from animal protection groups worldwide including The Humane Society of the United States, which alone has more than 9 million members.

We are asking you to negotiate with us in good faith. If we do not hear back from your office before the start of the hunt, we will have no other choice than to take this offer to the Canadian and worldwide media. We are providing the Canadian government with an opportunity to end the seal hunt and provide fishermen with an alternative livelihood. We look forward to discussing this offer with you. I can be reached through my assistant Diane Jacobitti.

Sincerely,
Cathy Kangas

[laheina]

72. Awesome alternatives.

The Canadians would come out ahead in that scenario. Too bad the politicians are too busy being kowtowing to the fur industry.

[george_maniakes]

76. A hand out is not a living

People from the east coast are sick of handouts. What they want is an honest living for an honest wage. The idea of trying to find other honest industries hunters could apply their efforts to i think is a great one, but the idea of "we will buy you" is very american and very gross.

[NMMNG]

73. What?

Violent people acting in a violent manner. I'm shocked. :sarcasm:

[Barrett808]

77. CNN: Activists say angry fishermen keep them from seal hunt

TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- Animal-rights activists said they were harassed by protesters Thursday and prevented from documenting Canada's seal hunt, despite police intervention.

Members of the Humane Society of the United States said one of their vehicles was run off the road, while several dozen seal hunt supporters surrounded their hotel in eastern Quebec and prevented their group from leaving.

Rebecca Aldworth, a spokeswoman for the group, said the police were serving as mediators between the angry fishermen, whose livelihoods are supplemented by sales of the seal pelts and blubber, and the Humane Society, which calls the hunt barbaric and wants it halted.

Later in the day, police escorted the 15 activists and journalists from the hotel in the Quebec town of Blanc-Sablon, near the Labrador border, to the airport. But by the time they arrived, their helicopters had already departed.

...

Aldworth said a day earlier, protesters surrounded a helicopter leased by the animal-rights group in the coastal town of Cartwright, and prevented it from leaving.

"They sat on the floats of our helicopters," Aldworth said. "We couldn't leave because if we started up the helicopter, the blades could have hurt somebody."

(more)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/04/14/canada.seal.hunt.ap

[Barrett808]

78. Seal hunt off Labrador could continue for days, say Fisheries officials

Seal hunt off Labrador could continue for days, say Fisheries officials
Published: Friday, April 14, 2006

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. (CP) - The federal Fisheries Department is keeping a close eye on Atlantic Canada's seal hunt as the annual slaughter stretches into its third day.

Department spokesman Larry Yetman says larger vessels stationed off Cartwright, Labrador, and in the Strait of Belle Isle are close to taking their allocation.

However, he says hunters were having trouble catching seals Friday off Cartwright where it is overcast and raining.

Yetman says sealers aboard smaller boats will likely continue hunting once the larger vessels have finished.

Daily catches are down and it could take days before the quota of 230,000 seals is reached.

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=3e4c128e-d889-476b-a3de-ee02232927c1&k=75281

[Submariner]

79. I sure hope the TRASH that wears those seal furs

chokes on a furball in their sleep and dies.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

80. this is sick........

[george_maniakes]

83. i doubt bunnies look that good...

after they are skinned too. It aint pretty, but its as bloody as all the other unseen parts of the food cycle from cow or pig or whatever to a steak on my plate. And im thankful somebody does it because i like steak. Id just prefer they do their jobs while respecting the animal.

[flvegan]

88. Food cycle?

This slaughter has nothing to do with food, at least as to the slaughtered animals.

[LeftyMom]

93. Nobody eats those seals

Once skinned and thier penises removed the bodies are left to slip into the ocean where they decay and contribute to bacterial overgrowth and anoxic conditions.

[DemExpat]

84. This just kills me and turns my stomach into a sickening scream.

:cry: :nuke:

DemEx

[DemExpat]

82. F**KERS.....

:nuke:

:cry: :puke:

DemEx

[gatlingforme]

85. I wish I could do to them what they do to the seals. n/t

[shockra]

86. Is this some kind of twisted attempt...

to rid Canada of its wimpy reputation? If it is, it's failing spectacularly. I can't think of anything wimpier than brutally killing helpless seal pups.

Maybe next they'll storm animal shelters and pluck out the eyes of kittens. I'm sure a market could be created for eyeball rearview mirror hangers, or something equally useful.

[Coventina]

87. I hate my species n/t

[judaspriestess]

91. so these pewtrid vile assholes

just leave their little carcasses to rot??

YOU rot you disgusting worthless poor excuses of humanity.
I hope you die a violent death.

[Omaha Steve]

94. Bribe To End Hunt Deserves A Look ( $16 M offer starting to look good)

Bribe To End Hunt Deserves A Look
April 15, 2006

Some sealers in P.E.I. say they're interested in an offer from the head of a U.S. beauty company.
Cathy Kangas, CEO and founder of PRAI Beauty, has offered Ottawa $16 million to replace income that would be lost by ending the East Coast seal hunt. The federal Fisheries Department has declined, but Ken MacLeod, a sealer from Murray River, says that many Island sealers want to give it a try. MacLeod adds that Kangas, who's expected to visit the sealers soon, will need to address future income as well.



http://www.vocm.com/news-info.asp?id=10945