I can't say I'm Sorry

[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/

[Sophist]

Now, this one may be less even-handed as it is from an organization with a vested interest, to say the least, but it has a good Q & A format that might give PTers something to think on and look in to.


http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/seal-phoque/myth_e.htm

[Sophist]

BBC article that is pretty fair, but obviously seems to agree with more of PT's viewpoint:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3618901.stm

[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.

[Sophist]

Ok, I have to ask out of curiousity to everyone who is arguing that they are against the hunt because the method of killing is inhumane... why do you feel that correctly using a hakapik or large-caliber rifle is inherently inhumane?

I have a few expert who weigh in on it's being humane, but I seriously would like to hear what it is that seems so inherently wrong about this method. It is at least as quick as a gunshot, and I feel more 'sporting' (in a way, not really sure how to say it, really) than shooting from a distant ship.

But regardless, here are some of the expert's quotes I have dredged up offa the web:

First one supporting the Canadian seal hunts, since that seems to be the only one I hear people here getting worked up about:

"The group notes that the Canadian Harp Seal Hunt is professional and highly regulated... It has the potential to serve as a model to improve humane practices and reduce animal suffering within other hunts."
---The Independent Veterinarian Working Group



And one not really in support per se, but a good point:

“The harp seal question is entirely emotional. We have to be logical. We have to aim our activity first to the endangered species... We have to be logical."
--- Jaques Cousteau



“We do not support the killing of any animals, but we do consider the slaughter of the seals in Newfoundland to be humane.”
---Trevor Scott, Executive Director of the International Society for the Protection of Animals



“As far as we are concerned the present regulations ensure that the best possible methods of humane killing are adhered to. Humane killing is not an issue.”
--- The Canadian Federation of Humane Societies


“I have examined the craniums of thousands of seal pups and I have never observed one that did not have massive hemorrhage in the brain, which is an indication that the animal was rendered unconscious and therefore incapable of feeling any pain...
Death was rapid and humane. The choice of killing method must favour the seal and not the observer."
---Dr. H.C. Roswell, DVM – Dept. of Pathology – University of Ottawa and founder of the Canadian Council on Animal Care



“The Gulf of St. Lawrence seal hunt as it is now conducted and as far as the young seals are concerned, is without a doubt one of the most humane slaughtering operations I have ever witnessed.
The greatest immorality in the seal hunting controversy has been the reckless, deliberate campaign of racial discrimination and hatred which has been deliberately fostered against the people of Newfoundland and of Canada by groups and individuals whose primary aim is to raise funds, particularly in the United States and Europe.”
---Tom Hughes, Executive Vice-President of the Ontario Humane Societies and former British Columbia SPCA executive.


“From a total of 509 animals examined at the time, there was reported to be only one other case of the animal not being rendered unconscious. This appears to be a fantastically high average of humane killing”.
---Dr. Keith Ronald – Dean of the College of biological science – university of Guelph


/// sorry, lotsa editing for typos and such.

[DrKym]

Sophist,
I have not read nor had time to go through the information, if it is as swift and humane as you are describing then I will change my view. My issue is simply with the amount of bloodshed. I hunt deer, moose and most other viable game each year, I use the most effective means of killing quickly and humanely. I have never hunted a seal, nor would I, I can only base what I know of hunting the animals I know with what I have seen in media. Therefore I am not as qualified to make a judgement just an opinion, after I read the information you have posted, may I get back with you on the method used?

[buttercup132]

Sophist and others who agree with her, you say that the hunters have families they are brothers and fathers. So are the seals. Animals grieve too. The hunters deserve to have everything done to them as they have done to the seals. That's my thought anyways.

And just for the record my post before I never said they deserved to die.