Stop the seal hunt!!

[LaFille]

This is a sensitive and controversial topic, so excuse my rant here. Many of the claims and arguments used in this debate are highly emotional and sometimes plain wrong, and I'll honestly say that all this fuss angers me by now.

To anyone who feels compelled by this: please, GET INFORMED and not only from one source, preferably with an open mind and from sources that expose different point of views.

Once done, the best way to take action there if one wishes to do so is also to take means that go to the root of the issue; that petition is cool, bans on Canadian seal products are cool (who consumes those seal products?). Banning Canadian products altogether and using emotional, ill-informed propaganda is not (not saying that it's what you do, Gal ).

But what especially gets me is the proportions that this takes. If all those good-thinkers crying out loud cared to look in their backyards too for a moment, just how some of our domestic animals are treated, how things happen in abattoirs or even just the impact of their own consumption habits and did the same before coming on their high horses demonizing the Canadian seal hunters, this world would be much better.

[Galadriel]

Banning products from Canada is not my idea at all, all I care about is to help stop the hunt for those baby seals. That is the main important thing on this petition. It's sad that if you do sign, that you also agree with banning Canadian products all together but I do hope that you understand why this has to be signed. There is a letter you can adjust, as I did too, I don't want to ban or boycot Canada at all.
As you know Fille, I'm a big animal lover myself, I would never treat an animal wrong and would go to the max to help animals that are suffering. (You should've seen me ranting to that man who was driving that carriage, how he beat his horse, how skinny it was and that he better take better care of it, and I gave it my bottle of water to drink ) The picture was taken right before ;D
And I'm working as a volunteer for a small organisation that brings food to small animal asylums.

[Terrordar]

You know, I'm gonna be honest here.

Look, why do you want to stop the seal hunt? Because they are cute and fuzzy, with big eyes. Look, its the truth. But here is the next truth-

The seal hunt does not negatively affect large portions of the population, and the furs that come from the seal hunt are a biproduct of the meat the natives take, its just more efficient use of the resources from the carcass.

I'm not saying fur is good, or that I'd personally wear fur, but this is childish. Its not like these seals are being driven to extinction. In fact, the northern seal population could dangerously explode if all forms of hunting ceased on them.

Seal hunting WILL NOT GO AWAY, because the natives EAT THEM. That is their only meals of viable income on their ancestral land, and they aren't hunting them into extinction.

This is the most childish [Censored]I've ever seen.

[Galadriel]

Ok, if i can't have my own opinion about something, then i don't want to be part of it anymore. No one forced anyone to sign the petition, all I did was bringing it under your attention. I deleted my starting post but my opinion doesn't change, no matter how hard someone insults me.

[Terrordar]

So the Inuit should roll over and die then?

Look, I know full well its "Well meaning" to care about the seals. But you are taking people who live in a hostile environment, have no real means of income in the modern world, and have no infrastructure, or fertile ground.

You are basically asking them to either A: Not eat. Or B: Pack up, and leave their lands, because watching seals die is uncomfortable for someone who lives in western Europe under comfortable circumstances, with relatively warm weather and prosperity.

Its stunning that the Inuit are largely responsible hunters, rarely endangering their ecosystem, which is more than can be said for places like Africa.

But yes, you can have your opinion. An opinion that if enacted would cost a few thousand peoples their entire financial livelihood, force them off their lands, or attempt to starve them to death unless they break the law.

I used to be on the side of "awww, the poor seals", and I still feel bad for them. But these people have to eat, these people have to live. And if you can't see that because you don't want an overly large seal population to be left unhunted, then I wonder if the real monsters are the people trying to hunt the seals, or the people trying to preserve them.

Especially since an embargo against the "furs", which are really one of the only things sold abroad, would do nothing save bankrupt the natives, because they will STILL hunt seals for food, because they live in a hostile environment.

Oh, and you know they've done this for... thousands of years, right?

[Terrordar]

You know what, I found the best thing to describe exactly what I mean-

[Galadriel]

My last reply on this: TD, you're totally missing the point here, I never said that I wanted the Inuit to starve, they hunt as well but use every part of the seals they kill. Nothing is left to waste.
I'm talking about the 100's of baby seals that are killed for the white fur. Some of them are only knocked out and skinned alive, which I've seen a video of. Eventhough they aren't treatened with extincion, doesn't mean the horrifying beatings can continue, if it has to be done, please change the method of killing then!
I'm willing to understand your position in this, cause you're Canadian yourself. But I refuse to take it for granted that those seals have to be killed in a brutal way, skinned and their remains left behind.
This said, I will not listen to your mad rantings anymore. I also have an opinion and I'm free to express that. I've signed the petition and will keep on doing so, because I say no to the brutal slaughter of animals!

[Flix]

I also have an opinion and I'm free to express that. I've signed the petition and will keep on doing so, because I say no to the brutal slaughter of animals!

Good. It's ok to stand by what you believe in. Your original post is gone so I'm not sure about the contents of the petition, but a mass ban on several products may not be the best way to stop the cruelty and waste - because it would likely damage too many responsible people as an effect (if Terror is right).

Oh, and you know they've done this for... thousands of years, right?

This is rarely a good argument.

[Terrordar]

I'd say its a perfectly fine argument good sir. And when you look at the logistical situation of it, its not all that strange.

To be honest, you wonder why these problems don't get taken seriously? Because some people want to ban trade with Canada. If you wanted something to have more weight, it'd be something much more, shall we say, diplomatic.

Personally? If I wanted to stop the hunting of baby-seals, I'd kill them all and burn the bodies. That way, no one can hunt for them, and in a few generations the Inuit would be forced out and live further south. I think its win win for everyone, including the seals. Because they won't be hunted anymore.

[Flix]

I'd say its a perfectly fine argument good sir.

It MIGHT be if the issue was that the hunting damages the ecosystem or is endangering species.

But the issues are cruelty and waste, neither of which are justified by long-standing tradition.

And I'm already on board with the argument that bans are an ill-advised way to stop it.

[LaFille]

Hey, girl, my post was not aimed at you or regarding what you do; I tried to make it clear but maybe it wasn't enough, sorry. =/
Your opinion or the right to express it isn't in case and those debates can be good to be had if it makes things change for better.

You seem to be ill-informed about the baby seals thing though; killing whitecoats is illegal in Canada since over 20 years now. The minimum age for them to be killed is when they have shed it and are abandoned by their mothers.

What people have the hardest time with is the use of the hapkapik (sp?) to crush the seals' skulls as means to kill them. It's a very hard thing to swallow and difficult to "accept" as something that might not be "cruel", especially these days while we have so many other means available and think ourselves so civilized.

As for spoiling, the only spoiling issue that I have heard of about seals is the loss of animals that drown when they fall off the ice or when it breaks, which would be something like up to 5% IIRC; if there is other issues, I'm not aware of it. I'm all for methods that would make this hunt more humane and more [efficient], though.

Which leads me to question... What about veal and lamb, chicks & company?

Another thing that I'm not sure if people are aware of, is that the huge majority of the seal products are not used here. While the places where seal hunting is done (which are small, isolated far away coastal villages) do use seal products and eat it commonly, I've never seen nor heard of any place else in Canada where you could buy seal meat, fur or oil...

[Flix]

Apr 3, 2009 4:24:05 GMT LaFille said:

Which leads me to question... What about veal and lamb, chicks & company?

The conditions are probably far worse, and on a much larger scale.

[Galadriel]

Apr 3, 2009 4:24:05 GMT LaFille said:

Hey, girl, my post was not aimed at you or regarding what you do; I tried to make it clear but maybe it wasn't enough, sorry. =/
Your opinion or the right to express it isn't in case and those debates can be good to be had if it makes things change for better.

No worries Fille, my last reply wasn't really a reply to you, but to someone who thinks that he can stand there and yell and be agressive to state his opinions.

[Terrordar]

Uhm. I do more than think. I do.

[Glance A'Lot]

In Germany we have a saying: "He who yells has the wrong argument."

The sophistication of your argumentation suffers from yelling and swearing.

[Terrordar]

That saying didn't work too well during the 30's, now did it?

[LaFille]

Apr 3, 2009 9:57:19 GMT Galadriel said:

No worries Fille, my last reply wasn't really a reply to you, but to someone who thinks that he can stand there and yell and be agressive to state his opinions.

Ok, cool; I was under the impression that it was because you kind of felt ganged up on and that it was what lead you to delete the 1st post. Feel welcomed to repost it BTW; much better to discuss something everyone has access to. ;D

I don't know about other parts of Canada, but as I said this is a sensitive topic that can get heated easily, especially with people from here, as many of those who don't condemn the activity (or don't condemn it althogether) feel unfairly agressed/accused/pointed the finger at/insulted by the foreigners campaigning the way the girl from the blog does. I too feel like swearing and rising tone when I come across these kind of campaigns too often.

Apr 3, 2009 5:59:56 GMT Flix said:

Apr 3, 2009 4:24:05 GMT LaFille said:

Which leads me to question... What about veal and lamb, chicks & company?

The conditions are probably far worse, and on a much larger scale.

I think so too, and that without even looking at the conditions in which they grow up before being killed. And it's sad that that side is so easily omitted. =/

IMHO the most (and perhaps only) way to kill really "humanely" is to do so the animal doesn't suffer both physically and mentally; the closest to that that I can see is how they conduct euthanasia in the vet clinics, giving a first injection to anaesthetize and a second one for the euthanasia per se. It's not possible to do that for animals that are to be eaten though, so all that's left is automatically to be more violent and less humane to a degree or another. A bullet in the head is not guaranteed to make the animal more/as unconscious as one that has the head clubbed with a hapkapik (even if it might be softer for our heads), and to be directly bled to death or shot in the heart gives a long agony... Without even thinking of other economic/practicality questions about the means used. So what can/should we do?

[Glance A'Lot]

Apr 3, 2009 23:27:49 GMT Terrordar said:

That saying didn't work too well during the 30's, now did it?

Well - the guy definitely had the wrong arguments!
You could say that his yelling deafened the listeners to reason.

But that's not the benchmark you want to see applied to you, or?