Canada the Butcher

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Maverick74, Mar 26, 2006.

  1. Maverick74

    Maverick74

    Canada hunters start killing seals, tempers flare

    By Paul Darrow

    OFF CANADA'S EAST COAST (Reuters) - Canadian hunters started shooting and clubbing harp seal pups on Saturday at the start of an annual hunt that is the focus of a tech-savvy protest by animal rights groups.

    This year, 325,000 young seals will be killed on the ice floes off the East Coast where the animals gather.

    Unusually warm weather means the floes are a fraction of their normal size and thickness, prompting hunters to kill the seals individually rather than clubbing them to death en masse as they cluster on the ice in pools of blood.

    "It's slow going. The ice is not full of seals all over the place," said Roger Simon of Canada's federal fisheries ministry, which oversees the hunt.

    The crack of rifle fire could be heard continually as hunters in boats shot seals as they lay on tiny floes and then dashed over to the bodies in hopes of retrieving them before they slipped off the ice and sank.

    Once the animals are killed, they are skinned and taken into the hunters' boats. The pelt is taken to make coats while the rest of the carcass is usually left behind.

    At one point a hunter, frustrated at the activists' presence, picked up the bloody carcass of a skinned seal and threw it at a small inflatable craft full of protesters and journalists. It hit the boat and sank.

    One sealing boat steamed straight toward the journalists' craft and turned at the last moment, sending a wave crashing over the observers.

    Canada says the hunt gives the local economy a crucial boost and helps keep a harp seal population of almost six million animals in check.

    The Humane Society of the United States has chartered a 110-foot (30-meter) boat to follow the hunt and is putting film and videos of the killings on its Web site.

    "It's disgusting when you stand out here and look at what the seals have been through already. They're clinging on for life as it is, thanks to the effects of global warming," said the society's Rebecca Aldworth.

    "I'm really appalled the Canadian government continues to allow this slaughter. There's no need for anyone to be out here killing seals," she told Reuters from the hunting zone.

    CANADA SAYS KILLINGS ARE HUMANE

    Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada was behaving responsibly and would enforce rules ensuring that the seals were killed humanely.

    "Unfortunately here we're to some degree the victim of a bit of an international propaganda campaign," he said on Friday.

    Celebrities such as former French film star Brigitte Bardot and ex-Beatle Paul McCartney called on Ottawa this week to stop the hunt.

    Aldworth repeated calls for an international boycott of Canadian seafood to protest what she said was "incredible cruelty at the hunt, including dragging conscious seals across the ice with boathooks, shooting seals and leaving them to suffer in agony and skinning seals alive."

    The first part of the hunt, which takes place near the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, usually takes about 10 to 12 days to complete. This year's quotes is just over 90,000 seals.

    The second and larger stage, off the coast of Newfoundland, starts on April 4.


    http://reuters.myway.com/article/20...02Z_01_N22382147_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-SEALS-DC.html
     
  2. There is nothing wrong with seal hunting. The only issue I have is that they skin the pelt and leave the carcasses to rot. At the very least they should be processing these for dog food.
     
  3. Maverick74

    Maverick74

    Dude, I assume this post was a joke.
     
  4. A bunch of drunk Canadians clubbing baby seals to death.

    What "sportsmen."
     
  5. A joke? No not at all. I think they are wasting a valuable commodity by letting these carcasses rot. I am assuming the blubber content might be too high for a cost-effective harvest of the meat.

    As for what I think is a Joke. It is killing civilians so we can fill up our SUVs with cheap gas.
     
  6. Maverick74

    Maverick74

    You see nothing wrong with clubbing baby seals to death?
     
  7. achilles28

    achilles28

    Sure its brutal.

    And so are commercial slaughter houses.


    The only difference between the two is the media tells you which one is worthy of ire, and which one isn't.

    Funny how that works.
     
  8. Maverick74

    Maverick74

    Not true. Slaughterhouses in this country are regulated and animals must be killed humanely. Yes, I know, there are violations galore in this area, but there is a precedent.

    These seals are not killed for food, as is the case with your slaughterhouse, they are killed for sport, for fun. It's a tradition that dates back to the 1800's.

    I am not only questioning the sport of it, but the manner in which they are being killed.
     
  9. achilles28

    achilles28

    Precedent of 'humane' killing, is a bit of a misnomer.


    Take a look at how commercial animals are raised. Then ask yourself why theres a deafening plea for the baby seals and not the feeder cattle or chickens that spend their ENTIRE LIVES juiced on hormones, living in cages.


    The answer is easy. The media takes issue with one but not the other. Even though both are clearly inhumane.
     
  10. Maverick74

    Maverick74

    I still don't follow. The media has said very little about the killing of the seals. The only thing I have seen on the subject on the news is a special Larry King did with Paul McCartney and his wife. The media has ignored this as far as I can see. As far as animal rights group, they have come out to denounce this as well as come out against the treatment of feeder cattle and chickens.

    I must be missing the whole conspiracy thing here.
     
    #10     Mar 26, 2006