BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:58 AM

We do no better now. The seals are in no more danger than the deer and the cattle.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:57 AM

I agree with you, buddy.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:57 AM

The great auk was the original penguin. (pinwing)

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:56 AM

The auk, the dodo bird and several species of island-dwelling tortoises come to mind, but that was a long time ago. We should know better now.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:51 AM

By the way, in that bastion of brutality, Newfoundland, salt licks and corn feeders are illegal.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:50 AM

Yeah, that's true, pdq. But we've hunted species to extinction before. The great auk (?) comes to mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:49 AM

A lot of deer don't have a sporting chance either. Salt licks and corn feeders see to that.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:45 AM

Don't be silly.

Of course the seals have a "sporting chance" more than tuna do for sure.

Are your supermarket shelves full of little tins of seal?

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:44 AM

323,070 deer killed in Pennsylvania in the 2006 - 2007 season. I wonder how many were killed in the whole country in that year. Must have been in the millions. Millions of deer brutally slaughtered in 2006 and 2007 in the United States, and not a peep of protest from our concerned friends. Not a single thread in all the years I've been here in the Mudcat, while not a year has gone by without a thread protesting the seal hunt.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:42 AM

Canada manages its natural resources as well as any country in the world. Cheap shots here are, indeed, not called for.

All killing of animals is the same. Not hardly.

Killing an American buffalo when the population is 19 million is not the same act as killing one when the population dropped to 79. The latter would be an atrocity.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:17 AM

Some usually bright posters have lost the plot. It is either right or wrong to kill animals. If it is wrong, then it's wrong in slaughetr houses as well as nature. If it's right, well, there's no problem.

There is no doubt that the Canadian government has mismanaged the fisheries. There is also no doubt that the amount of fish taken by other countries just outside Canadian waters caused the stocks to deplete big time. If anyone thinks that isn't so, look at the state of this planet and its resources and take on the challenge of explaining to me the wonderful job we've all done managing this place.

If the acrimonious bullshit keeps popping up, I'd suggset those who find Canada's mismanagement of this to be so deplorable maybe look inside their home country and tell me how everything is just dandy there. I will send an e-mail to our Prime Minister and let him know you have the answer.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:13 AM

What do people think would happen to the deer population here in the US if we outlawed the hunting of deer? And the question that goes with that is; why are the people who are protesting the seal hunt not also protesting the deer hunt? In the 2006 - 2007 hunting season, 237,316 deer were killed in Ohio alone. The entire quota for seals in Canada for 2008 is 275,000.

Humans have created a situation in which we are now the top predator in the food chain. The number of other predators has been severely reduced, and now it is we who have to fill that niche for many species. This is certainly true for deer, and it is true also for the seals that inhabit places like eastern Canada.

Who among you is going to call for an end to the deer slaughter?

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:01 AM

...from Barry Finn post:

"Are there penguins too. (?)"

ANS: NO, penguins are only found south of the Equator. Think Antarctic, not Arctic.

""Tell me, what is the moral difference between killing a seal and killing a cow?"

(Barry says)"Can we farm raise seals???? Can we farm raise Cod????"

The point has been raised that theses seals are a naturally-occurring polulation and are on their 'home turf'. We do need a good reason to disturb them, in my opinion.

Each species is different and must be considered separately. Tuna, for example, move rapidly and can travel long distances. They also have a sporting chance to elude the fishermen. Abalone, on the other hand, stay attached to their rock and cannot 'get away'. Harp seels cannot 'get away' either.

I suggested that people who seen to need to harvest harp seal should try to raise them. See how much time and money is spent feeding them and keeping them healthy. Then you can compare killing a cow to killing a seal.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Barry Finn
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 03:35 AM

Pardon my ignorance in these here seal matters, school me in the reasons, I got some of the facts, I think.

If there's not much to be made off the seals, aside from the meat (do that many people eat seal meat, fair question, I don't know, really) & fur (do that many people realy use the fur these days?) then what makes the hunt so important?
If they're so cute why not base an economy around eco touring like in the Antartic, it's a booming business there? Are there penguins too. It seems to me that their are other potentials too. Make it a territorial game "feeding the orkas", won't that help to distract the killers from eating the cod, they do eat cod, don't they, I don't know? How much cod do they eat? If they can toss a seal like a beach ball like I saw in those videos I can imagine what they'd do to a 6' cod steak/stock. What do they eat along what food chain do they dine? Maybe you should take them off the whale killing ban, if they are in fact real whale. Are they, I don't really know?
I'd certinally say that non Canadians commerical fishing vessels, espically bottom draggers should be legally controled & in some cases by the way they fish should even be banned, but then that's a government issue isn't it?
As commerical predators, I don't think an industry should be allow to regulate itself and when industry lies in the same bed with those that regulate/legislate it's the common citizen that always suffers.

"Tell me, what is the moral difference between killing a seal and killing a cow?"

Can we farm raise seals???? Can we farm raise Cod????

Has Canada managed their fisheries properly, could there be some accounting that the government has failed these industries? I know that the Canadian natives have had there fair share of being screwed by not only the governement in these areas, espically the river salmon fisheries but also they've been screwed by the locals that live around them, is this a taste of one's own medicine

Whose eating all those seals anyway & whose clothing all those Inuits?

"Whose gonna shoe your pretty little feet & whose gonna glove your hands
And whose gonna kiss your red rosy lips & whose gonna be your man"

"A whitecoat's flipper's gonna shoe my pretty pretty little feet
And a harp's gonna glove my hand
And a cod's gonna grease my pretty little lips till there's not to eat in this land"

by Me, just being a wise ass & a devil's advocate

Not a bad thread, if there were a little less emotion & a bit more of the reasons that brought about these conditions I'd be able to see things more clearly but as it is I'm hearing to much personnel stuff that's preventing me from getting an understanding of it all & I would like to be informed about all this

Thanks
Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 02:13 AM

Oops

>>resurface dozens of miles away<<

should be hundreds of meters.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 01:43 AM

My dad was the gunner. I just steered the boat, where he told me. I am quite skilled enough at that. There was a bit of a lop and safety first, one has to be sure of one's shot. Every time we got close, the seal would dive, only to resurface dozens of miles away.

I only got to do it once.
Of course because the season is so short and the quota so small, the window is very small in which to hunt. Before seals were as plentiful as they are now, often the hunt was closed before they reached our bay.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: M.Ted
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 08:35 PM

Your talents apparently lie in other areas, Jack--thanks for sharing--

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 06:37 PM

M Ted.

I have never been to the front. My grandfather was the last to do that. I hunted seal once. My father was gunner. I drove the boat. We chased a seal around Bay Roberts harbor for half a day with no result. It may have been a helpless baby, but it was smarter than us that day.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: M.Ted
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 05:16 PM

Jack--given that generation after generation in your family have participated in the seal hunt, one is inclined to think that you've been out there, as well--is this accurate? Inquiring minds want to know--

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 04:00 PM

As I've said before, forget the feedlots and "finish" the cattle on grass.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 03:47 PM

>>1. Many if not most of the seals killed are in international waters and are neither exclusively the property of you, Canada, Europe, or me. They are a naturally occurring wildlife population. As such, and as the proper stewards of the natural environment that we all should be, it IS my business and everybody else's.<<

The hunt is entirely within Canada's 200 mile fisheries management zone. Pretty much everyone on earth recognizes that as Canadian territory vis-a-vis fishing but you and Paul Watson.

>>2. Any activity which creates wholesale slaughter of a species with no corresponding and equivalent benefit is irrational in my opinion. Cattle are slaughtered to yield meat, a food which people desire and will pay for. The byproducts of this process, such as leather, is also a commercially viable substance. There is no corresponding demand for seal meat (as Peace said, maybe you and bill and other interested parties could take on a marketing project), and the pelt market doesn't yield the profit to make the industry viable without government assistance. ie., irrational.<<

The meat is being eaten. and if it were not, there is nothing irrational about using animals for clothing. Man has been doing that for hundreds of thousands of years.


>>3. I can't really think of an action much more barbaric than bashing the brains out of a 2-week old wild animal for an irrational reason...see#2 above... , but (and it's a big but) I realize that the word "barbaric" is a loaded term. What would work better to describe an activity that once had survival significance for the participants, but is now continued for no reasonable (once again, see #2 above) purpose? Archaic?<<

I can think of ten thousand things more barbaric, including keeping animals in zoos, feed lots, and commuting as the lone occupant of an Escalade. Where will your precious "baby" seal be when there is no more ice.


>>4. Jack, it was your wife who suggested I get involved in Canadian business by lobbying for a ban on fishing trawlers taking cod in Eastern Canada. I might also add that I have not really notice a reluctance from Canadian or European posters here to make strong comments on American business. Have you criticized American policy on the forum, Jack? If so, would you cop to some hypocrisy yourself?<<

I am not speaking for my wife. I certainly don't want you lobbying for anything on my behalf. I pay taxes here, I have for nine years, so US policy, how my taxes are spent is certainly my business. As I said before. You should clean up your own back yard before you criticize mine.

>>So, I concede you a point regarding the term "barbaric", and would refrain my initial statements as follows -<<

>>"I urge EU Mudcatters and Canadian Mudcatters as well to work for the end of this irrational and archaic slaughter."<<

In response to that I urge all Mudcatters to work on the ten million more important, urgent problems in the world before they devote much time and effort to this one.

or

Think about the irrational and archaic slaughter of this poor little baby after he has spent a miserable, short, cramped life on a feedlot being pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, the antibiotics being used to keep him from being poisoned by his own feces.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 03:27 PM

"rephrase my initial statements" I should have said.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 03:24 PM

Whoah, Jack. Something like an attempt to address the actual issue tumbled out in your last post! Keep flinging the darts, though, you'll eventually hit the target. Here we go...

I am trying to be patient but I am not going to argue in circles with you. Here is my beef with this thread.

"I urge EU Mudcatters and Canadian Mudcatters as well to work for the end of this irrational and barbaric slaughter."...EJ

1. Its none of your business. You are not European or Canadian. Your government has already banned seal products.

2. It is not an irrational slaughter. It is you who are being irrational.

3. It is no more barbaric than any other slaughter.

4. If you still insist on minding Canadians' and Europeans' business let me point out that you are being a complete and total hypocrite...JtS

1. Many if not most of the seals killed are in international waters and are neither exclusively the property of you, Canada, Europe, or me. They are a naturally occurring wildlife population. As such, and as the proper stewards of the natural environment that we all should be, it IS my business and everybody else's.

2. Any activity which creates wholesale slaughter of a species with no corresponding and equivalent benefit is irrational in my opinion. Cattle are slaughtered to yield meat, a food which people desire and will pay for. The byproducts of this process, such as leather, is also a commercially viable substance. There is no corresponding demand for seal meat (as Peace said, maybe you and bill and other interested parties could take on a marketing project), and the pelt market doesn't yield the profit to make the industry viable without government assistance. ie., irrational.

3. I can't really think of an action much more barbaric than bashing the brains out of a 2-week old wild animal for an irrational reason...see#2 above... , but (and it's a big but) I realize that the word "barbaric" is a loaded term. What would work better to describe an activity that once had survival significance for the participants, but is now continued for no reasonable (once again, see #2 above) purpose? Archaic?

4. Jack, it was your wife who suggested I get involved in Canadian business by lobbying for a ban on fishing trawlers taking cod in Eastern Canada. I might also add that I have not really notice a reluctance from Canadian or European posters here to make strong comments on American business. Have you criticized American policy on the forum, Jack? If so, would you cop to some hypocrisy yourself?

So, I concede you a point regarding the term "barbaric", and would refrain my initial statements as follows -

"I urge EU Mudcatters and Canadian Mudcatters as well to work for the end of this irrational and archaic slaughter."

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:51 PM

the last two were me.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:50 PM

Yes, unfortunately the are seal hunt protest songs. This one is full of ignorance and speculation but his audience is so gullible and stupid that he even admits that in the song and gets away with it.

"At least I imagine... I've never really watched."

That's Rolfie's problem. He's never really watched, he's never really watched the slaughter in his own country as well. Did you notice the white coat in the video? Don't let the truth get in the way of a maudlin line in polemic song or a tear jerking picture in a video.

Perhaps a post card of poor little rolfie warped in the intestines of pretty little calf slaughtered out in Devon so that he could have his steak and kidney pie is what is really required.

Rolf Harris dishonest pornography.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:21 PM

There are seal hunt songs. Mudcatter, Marion, has one she sings on her myspace page. It's about a great tragedy that happened when more than a hundred sealers died in a hunt...

Click on I Will Bring You Home

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:21 PM

>>Then you, by your own illogical standards, are complicit in the "irrational and barbaric slaughter" of "innocent" animals.<<

Singling out the seal hunt from all the other "irrational and barbaric slaughters" is childish bambification and it stems from two things. The strength of the other food lobbies and the gullibility of the North American and European consumer.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:14 PM

Ya know, there IS a solution in this. Create a market for seal meat. Then the fur becomes the by-product, Greenpeace can fuck off happy and the folks live without being called all kinds of names.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:13 PM

Tell me, what is the moral difference between killing a seal and killing a cow?

If it seems like I am all over the board its because I have heard the bull shit you re repeating literally hundreds of times. I know the pattern. Sometimes I like to head the bull shit off at the pass.

What you are doing is something I take personally because it is and ignorant and unjustified attack on my heritage and my people.

I am trying to be patient but I am not going to argue in circles with you. Here is my beef with this thread.

>>I urge EU Mudcatters and Canadian Mudcatters as well to work for the end of this irrational and barbaric slaughter.<<

1. Its none of your business. You are not European or Canadian. Your government has already banned seal products.

2. It is not an irrational slaughter. It is you who are being irrational.

3. It is no more barbaric than any other slaughter.

4. If you still insist on minding Canadians' and Europeans' business let me point out that you are being a complete and total hypocrite. People are animals. People gotta eat. Life is cruel. Being a carnivore is cruel. Seals are no better and no worse than any other meat/leather/fur animal. If you eat meat or wear leather or as some have pointed out even enjoy the benefits of a technological society. Then you, by your own illogical standards, are complicit in the "irrational and barbaric slaughter" of "innocent" animals.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: quokka
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:06 PM

With all the high emotion generated by this issue, you'd think there'd be more than a few folksongs written about the seals... the only ones I've seen on this thread have been about cod... maybe we should combine this thread with the one called 'Have you written a song lately?'

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 12:55 PM

Here's a plan.

After the fur is stripped off, have the seals flash-frozen and shipped to Iraq to feed the US troops!

Wow, that should make everybody happy.

Can't wait for the mess hall menu: "harp seal on a shingle"

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 12:55 PM

EJ .... good point in regards to Iraq ... now at least you looking out at your own backyard, to some degree ... as to starting that thread ... maybe someone else can ... I just wanted to state a fact in this thread (as jack said) .. "It is pointing out the weakness and hypocrisy of your position."

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 12:47 PM

and you are all over the board. But I'm sure you have a thousand reasons why.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 12:41 PM

>>the vegetarian vs carnivore argument and its slaughterhouse/cruelty component is an obvious attempt to deflect and evade.<<

No it is not that at all. It is pointing out the weakness and hypocrisy of your position. No one who has thought these protests all the way through can protest the seal harvest and not be against all cruelty to all other food/fur/leather animals.

With all due respect.
You are just not thinking clearly. You have been sold a bill of goods. You are bambified.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 12:33 PM

While a discussion of fishery practices is pertinent to the thread topic, since part of the justification for the Seal Hunt is the notion that seals are causing or at least preventing the reestablishment of the Cod Fishery, the vegetarian vs carnivore argument and its slaughterhouse/cruelty component is an obvious attempt to deflect and evade. I suggest, bill, dianavan et al, that you start a thread on that topic and I will be happy to voice my opinion there. Frankly, I'm amazed that you haven't made an argument along the lines of "how dare you criticize the Seal Hunt while America has troops in Iraq?"

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 12:03 PM

It would be nice if every bovine had an acre or so of beautuful green pasture land to itself and that each one was a "contented cow", but that is simply not going to happen.

There is another thread right now titled "Food: Inflation" were it is stated, with some authority, that the people of planet Earth have consumed more food in the last 2 or 3 years than they have produced. That means that the historucally small stockpiles are being depleted.

We are actually pushing as hard as we can to produce food, any way we can, and still falling short.

The United States has just 4.6% of the world's population, yet all food shorfalls are expected to be made up by Americans. The result is that our limited farmland is being damaged at an alarming rate. Also, the people who come to this county to work on those farms stay. They build their houses on the finest farmland in the world. Eventually, the best farmland will be lost under urban sprawl and the marginal areas of desert and such will be all that is left to farm.

We have some big problems coming, especially if the Third World presents us with 1/2 billion new mouths to feed each decade.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 11:19 AM

Cattle feedlots in the U.S. ... literally almost all beef consumed in the U.S. is sourced from these factory feedlots ... most people in the U.S. born 20 years and later have never eaten beef that has been grass fed ... these feedlot cattle are entirely fed with genitically modified corn ... this enables them to get a bovine to market in less than a year as opposed to 2 years with a grass grazed bovines ... the feedlot bovines are so stuffed and fattened with this corn feed making them very susceptable to infection/disease that they they are highly pumped up with antibiotics ... in fact most of the anibiotics produced in the U.S. goes to these feedlot cattle.

So ... IMHO I consider this not only a tragedy of absolute cruelty to animals but cruelty to humans in thinking that the hamburgers, steaks and beef jerky they consume is healthy and safe to eat.

forget about those seals, I'd be more concerned about the plight of the American cow and the plight of your fellow human beings.

dianavan ... good point about losing good farmland to urbanization. Mississauga the huge subarban spread outside of Toronto entirely devoured some of the finest farmland to be found in Canada.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:39 AM

If you want to protest, protest the off-shore trawling, or the feed lots or the filthy conditions of poultry farms. Have you ever seen the feed lots? I'll bet you'd miss your Sunday Chicken dinner. Do you eat Big Macs? Do you realize how much flora and fauna are displaced by cows? If you are vegetarian, protest the loss of farmland to urbanization and industry.

Seals are abundant and are a source of food in a part of Canada where there is not much food. When seals become endangered, maybe then I will protest. No, I do not wear fur of any kind.

btw - I actually watched a killer whale kill and eat a seal. It was brutal but fascinating. There were children with me. Nobody cried. Thats life.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 10:15 PM

Sorry Jim I thought you posted an earlier one. I couldn't watch it til today

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jim Lad
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 09:03 PM

Hey Jack! I already posted that one.
Don't you read my stuff?

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jim Lad
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 09:02 PM

A Cape Bretoner comes to BC or Alberta, he's called a Newfy.
She's called often.

Amen!

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 07:00 PM

Mike Duffy interviews Hearn and Watson.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 05:48 PM

You didn't say where they were from at first. I thought what I said needed to be said in the context of the larger discussion.

Its strange. A Newfie moves to Ontario or Alberta, He is still and Newfie. He moves to Labrador, he starts calling himself a Labradorian. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: gnu
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 05:40 PM

JtS.... "I am sorry to say that there are a small minority of Newfoundlanders who are selfish enough to ignore sport fishing laws..."

Um, these guys were not Newfs... nor were they Labradorians (ever call a Labradorian a Newf by mistake? Geeze!). But, let's keep that twixt us what know the difference. No sense in opening another can of seals.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 04:09 PM

However, I don't understand why you think you should get involved on the issue of the seal hunt, but not on the issue of the bottom trawlers. Maybe the Canadian government would work harder to do as Iceland did if enough people put pressure on them to do so. They have enacted stricter regulations on the seal hunt in response to public pressure. It seems very inconsistent to me to get involved in the seal issue, but not to get involved in the trawler issue, which is having a much more devastating impact on the natural world than the seal hunt is.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 04:02 PM

Beg your pardon.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 03:15 PM

As for Americans putting pressure on Canadian authorities to restrict fishing methods by foreign trawlers, that may be the first and only time I've heard a Canadian suggest we get involved in their politics

I'm the one who made that suggestion, and I'm not Canadian.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 03:08 PM

Oops, I was the guest.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 03:08 PM

>>Your turn.<<

I have always been against barbarism and cruelty in the hunt. I am for the training that the DFO is now giving the fishermen to minimize that cruelty. I am for the managed hunt in its present form with fisheries officers on patrol and enforcing the rules. There are poachers, sadists and yahoos in every country. Any hunt needs to be regulated.

I am not against a measured, balanced hunt of a raccoon that ends with a carefully placed shot with a rifle. My neighbours eat raccoons and presumably sell their pelts. I am totally against a hunt that ends with a raccoon and a dog fighting followed by the remainder of the pack of dogs tearing the raccoon to shreds.

In my mind you have been mischaracterizing a balanced, measured, civilized harvest, as an irrational and barbaric slaughter.

Irrational and barbaric slaughters slaughters are taking place in your own back yard in Kentucky. I am respectfully telling you that preaching to other people about such things should start at home.

Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 02:41 PM

Jack, you say I expect you to condemn the Seal Hunt while I refuse to condemn the brutal hunting of raccoons. You are right. I have, in fact, refused to condemn those hunting methods and the motivations that lead to them up to now. Part of the reason, I suppose is that, hailing from rural Kentucky, raccoon hunting has always been a fact of life for my ancestors. Their pelts were used to clothe people, and the meat to feed them. Once upon a time, they were hunted for good reason, but not anymore. Therefore, I now publicly condemn the brutality and, yes, barbarity of the raccoon hunt.

Your turn.

As for Americans putting pressure on Canadian authorities to restrict fishing methods by foreign trawlers, that may be the first and only time I've heard a Canadian suggest we get involved in their politics. Isn't this ultimately the responsibility of the Canadians and particularly those most closely affected by the fishery collapse? I believe that Jack is correct here when he advocates adopting a more aggressive enforcement policy such as Iceland has done.

On a personal level, I understand Jack's anger. And believe me it's not the first time I've been told to FO, so I don't take it personally. I don't think Jack's Dad is a barbarian. If I say the Seal Hunt is barbaric, as the raccoon hunting method Jack mentioned is also barbaric, it does not necessarily follow that the people who participate are barbarians. My Grandfather, who was an expert coon hunter, was a fine man and good father, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't a barbarian.

I don't think any one in Newfoundland will change their position based on a conversation like this, nor have I changed mine. But perhaps it has made us think more about the impact and the root causes of the controversy, and has helped some of us(me, for example) to learn something along the way. Even more basic than the controversy over the Seal Hunt is the fact of the collapse of fisheries with the accompanying death of a way of life and means of sustenance for a people, and the far-reaching implications for Earth's growing populations and shrinking resources. International cooperation on a previously unseen level will be necessary to avert impending disaster. The initial dialogues will certainly contain a fair share of FOs.