I can't say I'm Sorry

[Pawsitive Thinking]

I am pretty shocked by this and other responses here in this thread. These are the sorts of things I would expect to hear from ALF, PETA, or other domestic terrorists.

These are human beings. Seeing this one path they have chosen in their lives and wishing ill on them while 100 or so terrified families wait and worry for them... I am sorry, maybe it makes me a bad animal lover, but I just can't wish that level of hardship and pain on hundreds of strangers who I only know one thing about in the vain hope of preventing a cull.


Yes, it is an ugly, horrifying bloodbath, but I don't think it can be so easily dismissed as totally un-needed or only based on fabricated problems. It can be hard to be objective about culling, but it is not always the worst thing that could happen to an animal.

Do people who legally kill an animal (possible in the best interest of the animals around it) deserve to die slowly and miserably while we sit in our comfy homes and giggle? I personally can't say yes and feel good about myself.

Hmm - I have to admit that my initial response was a knee-jerk reaction. As much as I abhor the seal cull I certainly do not want anyone to lose their lives - they are husbands, fathers, sons and brothers too

[Marigold2]

Oh ok this is my two cents. Since we are saying that culling is ok for these seals lets go into animal shelters and club dogs and cats to death as well, lets not forget about bunnies. Is the mommy nursing or pregnant with a litter of puppies, too damn bad? I am going to take a baseball bat and slam it in to that Golden Retriver again and again and again as it screams and begs for it's life and the life of it's puppies but hey that's ok it's only culling. Anyone have a problem with that? It's only culling and we have too many dogs and cats anyway. Those people out there just making a living. Maybe we can hire them to come over here and empty or shelters. Why not? They can beat all the dogs and cats to death. Lets support their families their kids. Those men gotta work.
But you say these are dogs and cats, we love them, they love us they are loyal. Well too damn bad. Those poor defenseless seals have as many joys, and hopes, and want of a meal, fresh water, care and love of their young as any dog or cat or rabbit. The question is NOT how much they love us, or how cuddley and cute they are, or how they greet us by the door. None of that matters. Seals and dogs have the same amount of pain receptors. Hit a lab with a bat, hit a seal with a bat, same screams of agony, same pleading eyes, same blood splatters and tissue squirting out. NO DIFFERENCE. So if beating a seal is ok and we can call it culling then beating a dog to death when it is pregnant and you don't want the pups is ok as well.

[lizbud]

Oh ok this is my two cents. Since we are saying that culling is ok for these seals lets go into animal shelters and club dogs and cats to death as well, lets not forget about bunnies. Is the mommy nursing or pregnant with a litter of puppies, too damn bad? I am going to take a baseball bat and slam it in to that Golden Retriver again and again and again as it screams and begs for it's life and the life of it's puppies but hey that's ok it's only culling. Anyone have a problem with that? It's only culling and we have too many dogs and cats anyway. Those people out there just making a living. Maybe we can hire them to come over here and empty or shelters. Why not? They can beat all the dogs and cats to death. Lets support their families their kids. Those men gotta work.
But you say these are dogs and cats, we love them, they love us they are loyal. Well too damn bad. Those poor defenseless seals have as many joys, and hopes, and want of a meal, fresh water, care and love of their young as any dog or cat or rabbit. The
question is NOT how much they love us, or how cuddley and cute they are, or how they greet us by the door. None of that matters. Seals and dogs have the same amount of pain receptors. Hit a lab with a bat, hit a seal with a bat, same screams of agony, same pleading eyes, same blood splatters and tissue squirting out. NO DIFFERENCE. So if beating a seal is ok and we can call it culling then beating a dog to death when it is pregnant and you don't want the pups is ok as well.

It is the same line of reasoning, is'nt it? All living things deserve
respect & kindness.

These men are not in a life threatning situation.The people on shore know
exactly where they are & how they are doing. Sure they are incovenienced, & I don't feel bad about that at all.

[Sophist]

Oh ok this is my two cents. Since we are saying that culling is ok for these seals lets go into animal shelters and club dogs and cats to death as well, lets not forget about bunnies. Is the mommy nursing or pregnant with a litter of puppies, too damn bad? I am going to take a baseball bat and slam it in to that Golden Retriver again and again and again as it screams and begs for it's life and the life of it's puppies but hey that's ok it's only culling. Anyone have a problem with that? It's only culling and we have too many dogs and cats anyway. Those people out there just making a living. Maybe we can hire them to come over here and empty or shelters. Why not? They can beat all the dogs and cats to death. Lets support their families their kids. Those men gotta work.
But you say these are dogs and cats, we love them, they love us they are loyal. Well too damn bad. Those poor defenseless seals have as many joys, and hopes, and want of a meal, fresh water, care and love of their young as any dog or cat or rabbit. The question is NOT how much they love us, or how cuddley and cute they are, or how they greet us by the door. None of that matters. Seals and dogs have the same amount of pain receptors. Hit a lab with a bat, hit a seal with a bat, same screams of agony, same pleading eyes, same blood splatters and tissue squirting out. NO DIFFERENCE. So if beating a seal is ok and we can call it culling then beating a dog to death when it is pregnant and you don't want the pups is ok as well.

Did anyone say it was ok, really? I must have missed it.


I never said the seal cull was 'ok'. But I don't think it is as black and white as our gut reaction wants it to be.

I hope, however, that you will bear with me on a few points:

A fair amount of the animals culled are used for meat, from what I have been able to discover. Taiwan and South Korea both import meat from these seal hunts, so it isn't as though it is all done for bloodlust or fashion fur.

And as far as the fashion fur element of it... I am obviously not a supporter at all. Not even close. However, there again could be a tiny, tiny justification for using a cull that would probably be taking place anyway to supply this awful practice. At least these seals got to live somewhat normally and not on a fur farm before being slaughtered. At least there is SOME sort of guideline and some attempts at policing the skinning of these animals. I am sure we have all seen or heard about the animal right's groups videos showing fur farms that apparently routinely skin (or begin skinning) animals on fur farms while they are still alive. There are regulations against this in the seal hunts, and some measures are taken to enforce this. It is very, very far from a perfect system, but at least (unlike the fur farms that would otherwise supply this fur) some attempt is made.

So... to answer Marigold's question... if you were to go into a shelter and use a tool like the hakapik(basically, the spiked club that tends to more closely resemble a pick-axe) or large-caliber rifles that tend to be used in the seal hunts properly, which independant vetrinarians have said produces unconsciousness and death quickly enough to meet the technical guidelines of a 'humane' method, in order to prevent the dogs from starving and/or to send the dogs to countries who would use their fur and meat in place of animals who would suffer a whole lot more if farmed and slaughtered there, then yes... I would support that as much as I could be said to support the seal hunt. And, as an added bonus, I wouldn't giggle and hope you would suffer or die for it.

As I said before, it is horrific and brutal and excruciating to see. I don't deny that at all or think the whole thing is 'ok', or that there isn't a ton of room for improvement and reform. I just think that it is better to die relatively quickly from trauma than it is to linger and starve and compete with your family for food, leaving the survivors weaker than if you had died sooner. And I think it is better to have wild meat and fur shipped in than to be raised in an unnatural, filthy slaughter ground and be killed without any sort of policing or a second's thought to your suffering.


Sorry it is so long-winded, but those are my thoughts on the matter...

[DrKym]

Sophist well said and my thoughts exactly! Thank you.

[lizbud]

Sophist well said and my thoughts exactly! Thank you.

Is there any position on this subject that you won't support? Talk about
flip-flopping.


I really don't believe the HSUS is considered some radical group and they
have much to say on this subject. Check it out. Thanks.

http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/p...ian_seal_hunt/

[Sophist]

Is there any position on this subject that you won't support? Talk about
flip-flopping.


I really don't believe the HSUS is considered some radical group and they
have much to say on this subject. Check it out. Thanks.

http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/p...ian_seal_hunt/

I don't think this is a flip-flop for Doctor Goodnow from what I recall of the previous posts... she was pretty moderate on the issue. She argued, basically, that we're to blame for needing a cull, but didn't deny that one was needed.

And to be perfectly honest, I have HUGE issues with the HSUS and their credibility and concern for animals... but that is an issue for another thread. Maybe that biases me more than I am able to compensate for, but I find the information here painfully one-sided and at times very deceptively presented.

I think this link is pretty fair, and has relatively balanced information that at times is damaging to both arguments. I will try to find more that straddles the fence some.


** Oops! Forgot to add the link... here is is:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/sealhunt/

[DrKym]

Is there any position on this subject that you won't support? Talk about
flip-flopping.


I really don't believe the HSUS is considered some radical group and they
have much to say on this subject. Check it out. Thanks.

http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/p...ian_seal_hunt/

I support the rights of the hunters to make their living, I do not agree with the method of the cull, but I am aware that the cull is necessary.
That is not flip flopping, I would hate for any of those men to lose their lives in their job.