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BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense

13 Apr 08 - 12:52 PM (#2314327)
Subject: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

In an attempt to prevent interference with its annual seal slaughter, the Canadian Coast Guard has ratcheted up its tactics. Video of the slaughter, as well as of the repeated ramming of Sea Shepherd Society ship Farley Mowatt can be viewed here. Yesterday, the Canadian Coast Guard forcibly boarded the Sea Shepherd ship in international waters, arrested the crew, and impounded the Farley Mowatt.

The seal "harvest" is a Canadian government sanctioned event of an industry which cannot be sustained on its own profit. Sealers who participate are qualified to receive unemployment benefits throughout the rest of the year. Currently, the European Union has taken a ban on the import of seal slaughter products under consideration, a ban similar to the one the US has had in place since 1972. The Canadian government has sent a diplomatic task force to the EU to lobby against the ban.

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

13 Apr 08 - 01:24 PM (#2314350)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,number 6

I'm a Canadian vegetarian who lives in the maritime region.

biLL

13 Apr 08 - 05:17 PM (#2314506)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: katlaughing

Thank you, LeeJ, well said.

Good on ya, biLL, must be difficult at times.

13 Apr 08 - 05:44 PM (#2314517)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: gnu

What is barbaric is that some people do not understand the balance of nature in this part of the world. Nor, apparently in their own. If they did, they would understand that Newfies need to fish to survive. In order to fish, there must be fish. If the seals eat the fish THE WAY THAT SEALS EAT FISH (one bite and on to the next in shallow water during spawning season), then there ain't gonna be fish to eat.

Now... all you veggies should be happy. Because, once the Newfs start having to harvest seals to eat to survive after the seals get fat on the fish, then, there will be lots of seal dregs to make fertilizer with to grow your veggies.

Barbaric? Fuck off. Irrational? Right back at ya.

13 Apr 08 - 05:58 PM (#2314523)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: meself

Funny, I don't recall anyone posting lately about the "irrational and barbaric slaughter" going on in their local slaughterhouse/rendering-plant/abbatoir/meat-packing-plant ...

13 Apr 08 - 06:11 PM (#2314536)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

There are plenty of seals. I wish this same ardent opposition had been around when a half dozen countries were shrinking the whale population to a point some species are endangered. No offense to you, EJ.

13 Apr 08 - 06:16 PM (#2314542)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,number 6

Green peace luvs the seal hunt ... it's a big money campaign to them. BTW, seals are not on the endangered species list. As bovines and pork are not on the endangered species list .... don't care what anyone says, the slaughter of millions of animals in the abbatoirs is also barbaric ... if you want to argue that, I say go tour one.

I'm a veggie, who is repulsed by any brutality of man to animal... but I'm not against the sealhunt ... why, cause I realize there is a population of people who rely on the income it brings ... sure, they may get unemployment benefits ... but that does not cover the food, clothing and shelter year round for them and their families. The people that hunt these seals belong to a culture, a way of life, music, language that is fighting to survive. That is threatened in itself by extinction ... they can't fish anymore due to the cod moratorium. The Unemployment (Federal Government) people are urging them to migrate .. move to Toronto, Calgary, Fort MacMurry to find employment. There they go, only to have their spirits broken, to fade away in the suburbs of those cities.

If you want to argue this ... take a vacation to the coastal areas Newfoundland ... you can't reach many of these communities by road ... you will find the most humane, colourful, indiscriminate people you'll ever meet ... it will change your perspective on this seal hunt, and you will come away enriched at having found a beautiful way of life, a beautiful part of the world.

biLL

13 Apr 08 - 06:29 PM (#2314549)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

Go and see for yourself what our "civilization," both in the US and Canada, have done to the indigenous people -- and if you have feelings, weep for them, not for the seals. The seals are not endangered.

13 Apr 08 - 06:45 PM (#2314559)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

Ah, at last the Canadians are chiming in. The usual finger-pointing and glass houses arguments. The point is there is NO PURPOSE whatsoever in the seal slaughter, other than to decorate the ski parkas of the wealthy and ignorant.

weep for them, not for the seals. The seals are not endangered. Yeah, good thing too, since 450,000 of them are being beaten to death with clubs this season.

13 Apr 08 - 06:46 PM (#2314561)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

Well, first of all I'm not Canadian....

13 Apr 08 - 06:48 PM (#2314564)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6

I think the energy, $money$ spent on the anti-seal hunt campaign and Employment Canada's migration promotion would be better put to use in finding some solution on how these coastal communities of Newfoundland and Labrador can survive in this world of global economics.

biLL

13 Apr 08 - 06:49 PM (#2314565)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

And Peace, the opposition HAS been around since the efforts to save whales at sea underwent the same sort of arguments, and the Greenpeace inflatables underwent the same sort of attacks. Some progress has been made there.
Canada wants to up the seal "harvest" since more humane ways of killing the seals have been found, like opening the femoral after they're stunned with the club. Progress?

13 Apr 08 - 06:52 PM (#2314567)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6

LEJ ... maybe we Canadians are better informed on the situation of these people and culture of Newfoundland.

450,000 seals is a very small number as compared to the cattle and hogs butchered every year so some people can eat a Big Mac.

Visit your local abbatroir ... you might just pass on the next lunch invite to Burger King.

biLL

13 Apr 08 - 06:55 PM (#2314569)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6

BTW .... clubbing has been outlawed in the seal hunt ... they use a rigle now days. Sorta like the shot at the back of the head used to but down a bovine.

biLL

13 Apr 08 - 07:01 PM (#2314574)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

Cattle, Hogs= Food
Seals= Parka fur

No, I would really like to hear about the people who need to do this and why. There are no other employment avenues in Newfoundland? Canada owes a living to the remnants of an archaic and undesired industry? Are they not already supporting them for all intents and purposes?

13 Apr 08 - 07:03 PM (#2314575)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

"And Peace, the opposition HAS been around since the efforts to save whales at sea underwent the same sort of arguments, and the Greenpeace inflatables underwent the same sort of attacks. Some progress has been made there."

I was a Greenpeace member/supporter in those times. I wrote letters. Lots of letters. I am not unaware of the situation. But please understand: I ceased having anything to do with Greenpeace when they issued an ad and words regarding the 'Oka Crisis'--after a police officer was shot to death. They supported the side that did the shooting.

And the question Bill raised about slaughter houses--what has Greenpeace to say about that? And you--what do you say about that?

13 Apr 08 - 07:10 PM (#2314578)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

Read your post. No need to reply.

13 Apr 08 - 07:12 PM (#2314581)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6

cattle, hogs = food

I eat food and I certainly don't eat cattle and hogs ... people can do without, at least the volume consumed of these animals ... not having the land required to feed beef especially could be put to more use in the growing of crops that can be better dispersed in feeding the hungry world.

biLL

13 Apr 08 - 07:16 PM (#2314585)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6

LEJ ... your question on what Canada is doing to sustain tis culture in Newfoundland, so they don't have to go out on the seal hunt ... I'd say no, not enough. As mentioned, Employment Canada gives financial incentive for these people to migrate to the areas of canada where they can find employment ... notably Toronto and Fort MacMurray ... a whole way of live is disappearing due to this ... most, would certainly rather stay in these communities.

biLL

13 Apr 08 - 07:19 PM (#2314587)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Ron Davies

It's not reasonable to expect people to completely give up meat--though some obviously have. My understanding is that the main reason for killing the seals is that their fur looks good on certain people--and they are willing to pay to do that. If there is any other reason, we should hear it. And it seems that those people who wear that seal fur could rather easily wear something else---it is not analogous to giving up meat.

If this is so, LEJ's question should be also addressed--is there no other occupation available to Newfoundlanders which would bring comparable income?

13 Apr 08 - 07:42 PM (#2314601)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

"The fisheries department estimated the total harp seal population to be 5.9 million in 2004, the last time it conducted a survey. The government says there were about 1.8 million seals in the 1970s, and the population rebounded after Canada started managing the hunts."

13 Apr 08 - 07:50 PM (#2314608)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

The hunt will kill about a quarter million seals. Global warming will kill lots more than that.

As a btw, I eat very little meat of any sort. Maybe a pound and a half a month. That's aside from eggs and milk at times. Live mostly on grains. As a kid I trapped muskrat for fur. As an adult I help get people out car wrecks/fires. I no longer hunt or trap, but if it becomes necessary I will. And no, I don't know that there is a non-cruel way to kill things. Death is cruel. But then, so is life.

13 Apr 08 - 07:55 PM (#2314612)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

Seal has been eaten for centuries by Arctic peoples. We feel food sources to which we are not accustomed are somehow "lower" or "unclean." As a result we are less well-fed than our ancestors were!

Marmot, groundhog, hamster, guinea pig, snake, seal, whale, lion, elephant, giraffe, rat, squirrel, rabbit, wild duck, gnu, gazelle, bison, buffalo, pronghorn, porcupine, marten, cougar, dog, cat, and a lot of other things are eaten around the world -- even (sorry Chongo!) chimpanzee.

To list them does not make me want to run out and eat them (although I have eaten some on the above list). But I can't condemn a culture that raises guinea pigs for food any more than I can condemn one that raises potatoes.

After all, in the long run we humans, the top of the food chain (usually), the paragon of animals, the glory of the world, are eventually eaten by our own intestinal flora and fauna and become nutrients for plants, which are eaten by herbivores....

13 Apr 08 - 08:05 PM (#2314625)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Ron Davies

Harp seals are not being killed for food, unless you have information that supports that. It is not necessary for harp seal fur to be worn by people. It's supply and demand--and the demand is by people who want to wear harp seal fur for aesthetic reasons--only. Sorry, that does not justify killing the seals.

Now, how about LEJ's question about alternatives?

13 Apr 08 - 08:07 PM (#2314628)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

I deliberately used the generic term "seal."

13 Apr 08 - 08:09 PM (#2314630)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Ron Davies

Harp seals are the issue.

13 Apr 08 - 08:14 PM (#2314636)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6

People eating hamburgers, people wearing furs ... what's the difference? ... anyway, that's what I said Ron, instead of putting energy and $money$ to protest the seal hunt, or migrating these people to other parts of the country and destroying a unique culture that is part of Canada, and part of our world how about putting all that effort into finding a viable solution for these people to compete and make a living in this global economy.

biLL

13 Apr 08 - 08:17 PM (#2314638)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

LEJ asks a good question. Alternatives to fur have been around for a long time.

The people of Newfoundland--and to a similar degree the fishers of NS and NB have been hit by it all, too, Right now the biggest city in Newfoundland is Ft McMurray. There are real people who have been hit by the excesses of various industries--fisheries being one of them. They've (many countries using their draggers and factory ships)taken too much cod and that fishery died. Others will follow. And the people will fall deepr and deeper into poverty, no offense to my eastern friends. When FPI fell, so did many of my friends. This is about human lives/families/futures. Hibernia will help the oil company and provide some jobs, but not enough and too late. So I have no answer.

13 Apr 08 - 08:22 PM (#2314642)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Ron Davies

" people wearing fur, people eating hamburgers" parallel is specious. As far as I know, nobody on Mudcat is trying to stop all fur-wearing--though an argument can be made there are other alternatives.

The issue is the slaughter of harp seals--specifically harp seals only--for the "beautification" of certain people who have lots of alternatives for keeping warm. Or don't you think these alternatives exist?

13 Apr 08 - 08:34 PM (#2314657)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: meself

"LEJ's question should be also addressed--is there no other occupation available to Newfoundlanders which would bring comparable income?"

No.

13 Apr 08 - 08:40 PM (#2314661)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6

At one time humans required fur to keep warm ... at one time humans required meat for protein.

Now furs are for fashion ... meat is for our own satisfaction of flavour ... both are not required for survival in this day and age. can one argue otherwise?

Time changes.

biLL

13 Apr 08 - 08:44 PM (#2314666)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

The killing floor is an ugly place.

13 Apr 08 - 08:50 PM (#2314672)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6

"The killing floor is an ugly place"

That's one thing that hasn't changed ... instead of pointing fingers one must look in their own back yard.

biLL

13 Apr 08 - 09:24 PM (#2314697)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

I have long thought, and believe, that if you want to eat meat -- any meat -- you should be willing and able to kill, butcher, and preserve it yourself. Ditto for vegetables and grains; and the same is true for fur -- you should be willing to do the bloody work involved as well as revel in the glamour.

At heart I've a very primitive person...or a realistic one.

13 Apr 08 - 09:26 PM (#2314702)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Are you a vegetarian, Lonesome EJ? If not, you are being incredibly hypocritical with your attitude. The seal hunt, because of the scrutiny it receives from the media and animal rights protesters, is a hell of a lot more humane than the raising and processing of animals for food in the US.

I'm a vegetarian myself (more than 37 years), but I'm not going to condemn the seal hunt any more than I will the practice of eating meat.    My father-in-law is going out for the hunt in a few days. He'll be doing it because he enjoys eating seal meat. Unless you have sworn off eating any kind of meat that you like because of the inhumane methods of raising and slaughtering them, you're really not in a position to criticize those who hunt and eat seals.

13 Apr 08 - 09:47 PM (#2314714)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

BTW, for those who don't know how it works (coincidentally, I was just talking with my father-in-law about this earlier this evening), the people who go out for the hunt get paid, but they also get to keep the carcasses (after the fur is removed from them, as well as some of the fat that is used for the omega3 oil). So it's not just money they're going out for. They're also going out for food. And the seals aren't just being used for fur, they're also being used for food and for the omega3 oil.

13 Apr 08 - 09:52 PM (#2314716)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

Am I to understand that Ron Davies' and EJ's positions would be changed if it were confirmed them that the Seals were used for meat.

Good. My family has been hunting seals for at least five generations, and if you want it. I can get my grandmother's recipe for Seal Flipper Pie from my dad and send it to y'all. And Yes Ron and EJ we eat Harp seals. Harp seals are the species that are most abundant. They are also the best source of oil and being large blubbery, slow moving, relatively stupid seals, they are the easiest to kill humanely

There are several good reasons for the seal hunt that have come to light in recent times. Seal meat is more environmentally friendly than Beef or Pork, huge amounts grain is not diverted to fatten them. They do not produce huge amounts of methane as cattle do. And since a growing or adult harp seal eats about 1,500 pounds of fish per year, killing the maximum allowed by quota would free up at least 100,000,000 pounds of fish for human consumption.

If you want to give Newfoundlanders an economic chance in life, let them harvest seals to 1970's levels of about 2,000,000 instead of the present 6,000,0000 - 8,000,0000
That would, conservatively, free up in the order of 3 billion pounds of high quality fish protein for a hungry world. It would lower the price of biodiesel and ethonol and hugely reduce the amount of beef methane.   

This protest has been going on for a long time and in its present form it has nothing to do with the inhumane treatment of animals. It has everything to do with Green Peace and FFAW fundraising. Harp seal pups are cute and they make great posters.

The Newfoundland seal hunt of present day is as humane as the harvesting of any animal, more humane than the raising and harvesting of beef and leather.

The animal is eaten, the pelt is made into leather ad/or fur. The oil is harvested as a medicine and a dietary supplement.

13 Apr 08 - 10:05 PM (#2314723)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Bee

Of course the seal hunt is an ugly business - like all killing of animals for our use. But, as is endlessly pointed out, the seals are thriving, they are killed as humanely as any hunted animal and arguably more humanely than cattle, sheep and pigs. Given humans are about their only predator (they are predators themselves), a managed hunt has actually increased their numbers - humans are part of the ecology, you know, and in this instance, apparently a useful part.

I cannot buy the 'it's only for their hides, so it's wrong' argument. Certainly some of the meat's eaten, since I'm able to buy commercially prepared seal pie at the Newfoundland store in town. But even so - I wore sealskin boots as a child, as did many other children, because they were warm, waterproof and cheap. There's a lot to be said for wearing fur and hide in extreme climates, and humans have done so since the Stone Age.

Those of you who think no harm is done to animals in the production of other clothing are blind. Cotton is the biggest water waster per pound of all agricultural products, and second only to cattle in habitat destruction - check the WWF site for the figures. Synthetics require an investment of massive quantities of fossil fuel. In fact, billions of small mammals, birds and reptiles are horribly slaughtered every year by the processes of ploughing, harrowing, tilling, weed and insect control, and harvesting grains and vegetables. I haven't seen a Bobolink since NS farmers started doing a second hay harvest - they are field nesters, or were.

And to be clear, I don't mind people objecting to the seal hunt, provided they don't become what I've seen lately. Paul Watson basically calling the death of four sealers a good thing. Blog comments I won't link to vilifying sealers and their families with injury ("how would you like it if I came to your home and crushed your baby's skull" was one anti-sealer's rant). Loyal posters at Democratic Underground (supposedly the bastion of political righteousness, sweetness, and light) jeering at the drownings, basically saying 'more of them should drown, they deserve it'.

Rich celebrities using the seals as publicity boosters for themselves. A famous anti-sealer and a famous movie star walking the waterfront in the Magdalene Islands, the former pointing to ship after ship and loudly boasting "I put that one out of business, and that one, and that one...", at a time when there was no work to be had for those people in that isolated place at all. Then making hay of the fact the local people got angry with them. And the continual, unending blatant lies told by the anti sealers: white coats haven't been hunted for twenty five years, for god sake!

I cannot respect this particular bandwagon.

13 Apr 08 - 10:09 PM (#2314727)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6

Rapaire ... your definitely realistic.

Carol and Jack ... says it all ... and if anyone can put the answer to this it is Jack.

seal flipper pie ... my stepfather used to eat that ... had it shipped from his family up in Twillingate .... back then I could eat anything, even cod tongues, but I passed on that flipper pie. In fact my stepfather used to go out with his grandfather when he was 14 to hunt seals ... they needed for food.

biLL

13 Apr 08 - 10:16 PM (#2314733)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

Number 6

You and me both. Cod tongues, prepared right are tender tasty wonderful food. But I don't like seal flippers. They remind me of stringy beef soaked in cod liver oil. The rest of my family back home love them. There is no accounting for taste.

13 Apr 08 - 10:20 PM (#2314734)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

Cheeks, my son, cod cheeks.

13 Apr 08 - 10:23 PM (#2314737)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

I have no objections to seal protesters, on principle, as long as they are vegetarians who wear birch bark clothing who ride to the front on ponies rescued from the glue factory. But the ones who fly there and eat steak in their fancy hotels, need to be protesting closer to home.

13 Apr 08 - 10:25 PM (#2314739)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST

Cheeks r OK but tongues r better. Cheeks r boney and ya gotta work too hard to get a decnt bit a meat out of em.

13 Apr 08 - 10:26 PM (#2314742)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

dat was me

13 Apr 08 - 10:36 PM (#2314754)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Beer

Seal Flipper Pie. Now that is a treat to be had. Damn near as good a Partridge Berry pie.
But what the hell are we going to do about all tha Canadian geese that are destroying the tundra?
Beer (adrien)

Well said Gnu
Well said Bee

13 Apr 08 - 10:49 PM (#2314770)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Bee

Beer: eat the geese in the fall, when they are fat and tasty. Now there's a hunt I'd like closed: the winter goose hunt - driest, skinniest, worst tasting geese ever. We get gifted with geese and ducks after every season, and I really hate the winter ones - husband likes them, so I cook 'em, but the ducks taste of old fish and the geese of the muddy eelgrass they eat.

13 Apr 08 - 10:59 PM (#2314775)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

Adult harp seal.

13 Apr 08 - 11:00 PM (#2314776)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6

How about partridgeberry jam and toutons ... great way to start the day.

13 Apr 08 - 11:01 PM (#2314778)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

Actually, the best of the best is fish head soup. Love that stuff.

13 Apr 08 - 11:03 PM (#2314781)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

The best is cod filets. Caught that day, coated in flour and fried in butter. MMMMMMMMMMM MMMMMMMM

13 Apr 08 - 11:05 PM (#2314782)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

Baby harp seal. Lots cuter than the adult.

Here's an alligator snapping turtle, which isn't cute at all -- but the World Wildlife Foundation lists it as one of the most endangered species on Earth. I haven't seen any posters or tee shirts or things saying "Save The Alligator Snapping Turtle."

Maybe that's because they're not especially cute, even as babies.

13 Apr 08 - 11:06 PM (#2314784)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Beer

Peace, you only know if you have a true head soup is if you see the eyeballs floating.

13 Apr 08 - 11:18 PM (#2314790)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

My father has a commercial license. He has had special training on how to kill humanely. He will be hunting from an open boat at least 500 miles from the front (where the pups are whelped). He will be hunting seals mature enough to have swum and fed themselves for that distance, and as Carol has said. He'll be either eating or sharing every part of the animal that's fit to eat.

13 Apr 08 - 11:44 PM (#2314800)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

And good for him and I hope he has a good harvest, JtS.

13 Apr 08 - 11:55 PM (#2314812)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

I think it should be noted that the reason you are under the impression that the seal meat is not eaten, Lonesome EJ (and that white coats are being hunted and killed with clubs), is because people have been lying to you. They are lying to you because they don't really give a shit about the seals. They also don't give a shit about people. They only care about the money and attention they get from telling people lies.

14 Apr 08 - 12:05 AM (#2314819)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Sandy Mc Lean

I've just been reading through this post. I consider myself both an animal lover and a lover of nature. I also observe nature and realize that it is inherently cruel even without any input from mankind. Every living thing must die by one means or another and that is as true for a seal as any other species. It may die fom a club blow or a gunshot and we may call that cruel but in it's own environment it will probably not die of old age but in an even crueler way. It will perhaps die from an attack from higher on the food chain such as by a killer whale or a shark. It is even more likely to drown as shifting ice or dipping temperature closes it's breathing hole. It also may starve if it can't find fish. Many species compete for fish including man. As fish grew more scarce man was able to catch even more because new sonar technology made them easier to locate. Bottom drag trawls scooped them up faster but destroyed the fishes food supply on the bottom. While man must bear the blame more than blame is needed to solve the problem. Bottom feeding fish such as cod and haddock must be allowed to re-generate the species before they become extinct. Bottom feeders are the easiest target for seals because they are slower swimmers than midwater and surface feeders. For this reason the seal stock must be reduced for the fish stock to re-establish itself.
I earlier mentioned about how cruel nature itself is and anyone who has watched a hawk snuff out the life of a sparrow or a cat toy with a mouse must understand this. A seal will bite off the tail of a fish so that it can no longer swim when they attack a large school. This will leave the fish still alive for maybe days, unable to move but available when it is needed. The law of the jungle prevails as much in the ocean as anywhere else. The codfish may not be as pretty or cuddly as a baby seal but it's final agony may be even greater.
As for non meat eating humans think about this before you pat your backs too hard: For every acre of ground ploughed many birds, mice, snakes, earthworms, insects, and other ground dwelling creatures lives will be lost. On the other hand a cow may be only one life and feed as many as an acre of ploughed ground. The truth is that we can only survive on this planet by killing something else and the seal hunt, although bloody, may be no more cruel than other fates.

14 Apr 08 - 12:06 AM (#2314821)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6

Amen to that carol !

14 Apr 08 - 12:18 AM (#2314827)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

Good points Sandy. Perhaps the EU should protest this.

14 Apr 08 - 12:22 AM (#2314829)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

killed humanely?

polar bear vs seal.

14 Apr 08 - 12:25 AM (#2314831)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Sandy Mc Lean

Yeh Jackgot to mention the bears.

14 Apr 08 - 12:38 AM (#2314834)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Sandy Mc Lean

This one although difficult tom watch says a lot as well!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pCuUPLs2tc

14 Apr 08 - 12:50 AM (#2314838)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Sandy, I have to disagree with you about how many people can be fed by one steer versus grain. While it's true that it is possible, in practice that's not how it works. The grain eaten by most cattle in Western countries could feed many more people than the cattle themselves could feed, so in practice, many more people can be fed with the grain we feed to cattle than can be fed with the cattle themselves. That means that far more creatures of the field are killed in order for people to eat meat than for people to eat grains and legumes.

Having said that, I will also reiterate my earlier statement that I don't condemn people for eating meat.

14 Apr 08 - 12:55 AM (#2314841)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

Hollywood has done a great disservice with such films as "Free Willy." They used to call it "Nature, red of tooth and claw" and they were quite right. Of course, those who said it left humans out of the equation.

14 Apr 08 - 01:02 AM (#2314845)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

Sure. It appears that you have bought into the entire propaganda effort that the Canadian Government and the Seal Industry have used as a justification for the "harvest", Carol. Congratulations! Many other people might actually pay attention to facts like
* The Cod Fishery in the Maritimes collapsed due to overfishing by commercial fishermen and inept management by your Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The justifier of culling the seals to restore levels of cod is completely bogus, and was acknowledged in 2005 to be so by the Canadian Government. Since harp seals feed primarily on larger predatory species, which feed on cod, decreasing their number actually has an inverse effect.
* Seals do not, in fact, represent the "sole option" for Newfoundland fisherman. Less than 1% of Newfoundlers participate. Of those who participate, less than 5% of their income is from sealing.
*The collapse of the Cod Fishery has not had the kind of impact claimed as justification by the Canadian Government. Due to the Fishery's expansion into snow crab and other shellfish, it averages 150 million more than before the collapse. Even cod provides four times the revenue of the seal harvest.
* Homespun stories about seal flipper pie aside, seals are not being killed for meat. Most of the meat is left on the ice when the pelts are taken. The little meat that is not discarded is sold as pet food in European and Asian markets, and is not even approved for human consumption outside Canada. But I'm pretty sure you knew that. No, the seals are killed for their pelts.
* Whitecoat (under 14 day old)baby seals are no longer harvested, true. At the 10 to 14 DAY point, they molt and are fair game to be slaughtered.
* Hakapiks are still used to crush the skulls. Check the video taken by the Sea Shepherd group...you'll see someone using one.

Jack, your Father sounds like a responsible man. If he uses all parts of a harp seal, he is not only efficient and unwasteful, he's also completely atypical of an industry that has as its principle goal the mass killing of seals and marketing of their pelts. No one would dispute that the native Inuit have taken seals for their pelts, meat, and blubber for generations. But Inuit sealers took less than 1% of the seal harvest last season. It's now a large scale commercial pelt harvest.
Let's at least be honest about that, CarolC. Spare me the specious arguments about slaughter house hypocrisy and the grand tradition of sealing. I really don't easily fall for other people's fables.

14 Apr 08 - 01:05 AM (#2314847)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

Bottom feeders are the easiest target for seals because they are slower swimmers than midwater and surface feeders. For this reason the seal stock must be reduced for the fish stock to re-establish itself.
The same lie, if repeated often enough, takes on the veneer of truth, I suppose.

14 Apr 08 - 01:18 AM (#2314849)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Sandy Mc Lean

CarolC, I don't totally disagree with your points. I just don't think that vegans really accept that they are part of the problem like everyone else. Percentages aside we all must either kill to eat or have someone else kill for us to eat. Then to condem that seems to me to be hypocrisy.
Last fall I travelled through western Canada and America. On the American praries I saw little wheat but lots of corn growing. Canada will no doubt follow suit. I assumed that this was largely cattle fodder but was told most went to ethanol automobile fuel. A large part of this was on irrigated land as well, but I read of an American water shortage and wonder if food production should be more important. However as I drove I was burning that same fuel so for me to preach would also be hypocracy. Now I believe that hypocracy has some value if it forces us to take a long hard look in our own mirror and it should temper our judgement of others. Perhaps that should be applied to the seal hunters as well.

14 Apr 08 - 01:43 AM (#2314854)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Sandy Mc Lean

Bottom feeders are the easiest target for seals because they are slower swimmers than midwater and surface feeders. For this reason the seal stock must be reduced for the fish stock to re-establish itself.
"The same lie, if repeated often enough, takes on the veneer of truth, I suppose."
I seem to miss your point Lonesome EJ. Are you trying to tell me that pelagic fish are slower than groundfish? Are you saying that seals don't eat groundfish? Or are you saying that the seals did not create the problem? ( I agree with the last question but it is not a solution because it is the fish, not the seals that are at risk)
Have you ever fished on the ocean or are you just accepting whatever crock someone else is feeding you? Do you really understand the problems of people who risk life and limb trying to scratch a living from the sea? Where does the REAL lie lie?

14 Apr 08 - 01:58 AM (#2314860)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

Lonesome EJ,

Where in the f*ck are you getting your information?

In the modern hunt SEAL MEAT IS NOT LEFT TO ROT!!! Do you think that my Dad is the ONLY fisherman that I know or my only source of information?

I personally know about a thousand Newfoundland fishermen. I am a personal friend of two fisheries ministers. I have friends who are marine biologists in Newfoundland and Economists with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Do you really think you know more about this than my father who sees more and more seals in his bay every year. After the quota has closed?

Don't you condescend to my father. He doesn't give a f*ck what you think of him.

The North Atlantic Cod was the breadbasket of the Western hemisphere for 400 years. Yes it was overfished. It is still being over fished by Spaniards and other European pirates on the Nose and Tail. Yes it was mismanaged, partly by not killing enough freaking seals! And yes, since a Harp seal eats 1500 pounds of fish a year a big part of the problem is the overpopulation of seals.

>>Since harp seals feed primarily on larger predatory species, which feed on cod, decreasing their number actually has an inverse effect.<<

Whose ass did you pull this tidbit out of? I grew up in Newfoundland and spent quite a bit of time When I was in grade three I could name every commercial species in out oceans. do you have any idea how large a codfish is? Just what is this magical creature large enough to prey on commercially viable cod but weak enough to be prey for a seal?

If there was such a fish, say a six foot long slow swimming swordfish or tuna it would be worth more to the fishermen than cod. If such fish existed, they would be an even better reason to cull the seals.

14 Apr 08 - 02:01 AM (#2314861)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

>>Or are you saying that the seals did not create the problem? <<

It wasn't the seals. It was the protesters that created the problem. Killing a million seals a year and getting a decent price for them would have a real economic benefit and save the environment.

14 Apr 08 - 02:01 AM (#2314862)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

I haven't bought into anything, Lonesome EJ. I know my father-in-law better than you do, and I know that he is telling me the truth about what it's really like out there. He doesn't work for the government. He's just a Newfoundlander who sees what's going on up close, instead of getting his information from people who have been lying for years.

The seals who are killed are definitely very young seals. But the people who are protesting the seal hunt are using pictures of white coats to sell their product. They are lying when they do this.

If you're going to protest the killing of the seals for fur, do you also protest the killing of other animals just for fur?

I was watching this series of videos earlier today...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esgyv8ynk_c&feature=related

I noticed that the tiny little chicks were being dumped by the hundreds of thousands into the places where they would spend their whole lives. The chicks' bodies grow faster than their legs can develop and most of them end up sitting in ammonia soaked litter for most of the very small number of weeks that they live, experiencing excruciating pain while the ammonia burns deep into their flesh with no relief until they are killed. This is what you are responsible for doing to animals when you eat meat. Spare me your self-righteousness.

ALL industries that raise and slaughter animals for any reason do it for money, and in the cases of most of them, the animals are treated a hell of a lot worse than the seals are in the seal hunt. Meat is just as much of a luxury as a fur coat. You don't need it. You eat it because you enjoy it. You're no better than someone who wears fur because they enjoy it. You're just a much bigger hypocrite.

14 Apr 08 - 02:16 AM (#2314867)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jim Lad

One of the biggest disappointments I endured in Cape Breton, was missing out on a Seal dinner after a Gig at the Neil's Harbour Legion. By the time I gathered up the gear and made it to my digs, there was nothing left but fat.
Ah well! Some day, I hope.

14 Apr 08 - 02:20 AM (#2314868)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jim Lad

"Sealers who participate are qualified to receive unemployment benefits throughout the rest of the year"

WHAT?

Seal hunting, like ishing & tourism is a seasonal industry.
That's why they are receiving unemployment benefits.

Good grief!

14 Apr 08 - 03:32 AM (#2314889)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Almost forgot...

* Hakapiks are still used to crush the skulls. Check the video taken by the Sea Shepherd group...you'll see someone using one.

Most of the seals are killed with guns. There are still some people who use the clubs, mostly in Quebec, but most of the seals are shot. But the seal hunt protest industry needs to keep people believing that all of the seals are killed with clubs because that kind of imagery generates more revenue than would be the case if they told the truth about it. Still, even the club method is more humane than the way animals are raised and processed for meat and leather in the US.

14 Apr 08 - 03:47 AM (#2314902)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Al Capone

I don't enen know what Street Canada is on.

14 Apr 08 - 03:48 AM (#2314903)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Dave Hanson

enen ? thicko.

eric

14 Apr 08 - 06:12 AM (#2314957)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

A question that is a bit off topic but cogent is this: WHY is Greenpeace not protesting factory farms or slaughter houses?

That is a serious question--not one meant to have vegans and seal hunters at each other's throats. It would seem to me that if this issue really is one about cruelty, then perhaps the question needs to be answered. (And no, I do NOT expect LEJ--who is a good guy, btw--to have the answer. Nor do I expect he should bear the burden of defending Greenpeace's 'protest' policies.)

14 Apr 08 - 06:54 AM (#2314977)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: gnu

Yes, Peace, LEJ is a good guy. But when I read his post... well here are a few snippets of a PM I sent in response to a PM concerning this thread...

"And, to call the Newfs "barbaric" set my blood afire." "And irrational?... it's called food on yer table and new clothes for the kids." "I really shoud be a veggie myself. I am as fat a seal!"

LEJ... I really do feel a bit sorry for telling you to FO. Others have used rational and explanatory arguements, as I should have.

I think I'll try to keep my big mouth shut now.

14 Apr 08 - 07:21 AM (#2314983)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,number 6

Good point Peace ... I also wonder why Greenpeace does not protest Greyhound racing in the U.S. .... 20k + are put down a year in the U.S. .... this accounts for hounds who average about 3 years of age ... the time they start not making any money, and the're racing carier is finished ... if the mass slaughter of these dogs is not a tragedy, the conidtions on which they are kept is rather horrifying.

Our female rescued greyhound tore her back legament in her 98th race ... she was a big moneymaker ... anyway they kept her in a cage for 2 weeks about 2 weeks without any treatment ... she was a couple of hours from being put down when I came across her ... she's a fine healthy hound now.


I have sent Greenpeace a couple of emails in the past regarding greyhound racing, the only replies I have received are notifications of having received my messages. I betcha if I sent an e-mail regarding the sealhunt they would have replied quickly, even mentioning where and how to send a contribution for their cause.

greyhound racing = gambling

biLL

14 Apr 08 - 07:23 AM (#2314984)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,number 6

BTW .... greyhound racing is illegal in Canada.

Our hounds came off the track in Boston and N.H.

biLL

14 Apr 08 - 07:25 AM (#2314985)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

We often say things in the heat of argument we wish we hadn't. Done it myself too often.

14 Apr 08 - 07:38 AM (#2314994)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Bee

LEJ, I'm sure you are a good guy, and a tender hearted one at that, but you really seem to have bought the antisealers line on this issue, with no consideration at all for learning anything from or about the people who actually participate in the hunt - or even who they are. Do you think these ordinary people consistently lie about it all to their families and neighbours and cousins, who, if you'll notice, are some of the people who are responding in this thread?

It's hard to admit to yourself that you've bought into the Bambi Syndrome, but please at least take notice that the World Wildlife Fund does not participate in protesting the seal hunt, and keeps a very carefully worded explanation on their website as to why. Carefully worded so as not to enrage antisealers who might be contributors, I'm sure is one reason.

JimLad, for the luvvamike, go on tour or something and visit the Magdalene Islands, for example, and see for yourself why people participate in this industry and then draw EI. Or do you think the government should just move everybody in Canada who lives in an isolated area to Vancouver or Alberta where they can work year round? Half our adult male population already lives out West half the year or longer.

14 Apr 08 - 08:25 AM (#2315029)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: kendall

I don't want to get into the arguments this thread is generating, but there are certain things I know from my career as a conservation office. I worked with the officers of the Dept. of Fisheries & Forestry out of Halifax when we were all charged with enforcing international treaties.

1. Organizations like Greenpeace have been caught and exposed setting up and filming the brutal slaughter of seals, and the whole idea was to make it look as cruel as they could for the express purpose of inflaming the viewers.

2. I don't know how it is these days, but when I was on the job, only the little white pups were taken. That video showed juveniles and adults.

3. Blaming the drop in fish on the seals just doesn't hold water. Our lobster fishermen used to complain that seals were taking too many lobsters. That was also a myth. The lobsters are dwindling in numbers because of the airplane. Worldwide markets have demanded more and more lobsters to the point that natives can't afford to eat them anymore.
When In was a warden, the annual catch of lobsters in Maijne was around 20 million pounds. Since that time, the catch doubled, and is now falling off again.
As Pogo said, We have met the enemy, and he is us.

Finally, I was appalled at that Canadian ship that collided with the ship that was being used to interfer with the seal harvest. It was a deliberate collision, and the protesters ship clearly had the right of way. That's why all ships have a red sidelight on their port side, and a green light on starboard. The CG ship was showing a green light yet not yielding the right of way.That's a violation of the rules of the road.
No matter where you stand on seal killing, even if it is legal, ramming another ship is a violation of international law. I can't believe that the Canadian government would condone that act!

14 Apr 08 - 08:37 AM (#2315034)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: kendall

Exerpts from Dave Mallett's song, Song for the animals.

...we are all in it together,
it's become such a part of the race
It's eternally magic, that which is magic
Be killed at the end of a glorious chase,
From young seals to great whales
From waters to woods they fall like leaves in the wind,
But we've fur coats and perfumes and trophies on walls
What a hell of a race to call men.

...here's to the world of the wild ones
Here's to the ones that must fall
Forgive us and bless us, we know what we do
We're victims of blindness that's all
And mothers your babies keep grand ladies warm
As they stand on veranders at dusk
It's too bad we killed them before they could swim
But, you know that the whole world was given to us.

You say the battle is over, finnaly the world is at peace
You mean no one is dying and mothers don't weep
Or it's not in the papers at least
Go write it on the sides of the great whaling ships
Or on the ice floes where concience is tossed
With the wild in their eye it is they who must die
It's we who must measure the loss.

14 Apr 08 - 09:28 AM (#2315069)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Sandy Mc Lean

Kendall, no doubt there seems to be bad blood between the coast guard and Greenpeace. Recently a small sealing vessel under tow from an icebreaker flipped over and sank taking the lives of four sealers, leaving the coast guard probably not blameless. Greenpeace was quick to seize on the situation showing total disrespect for the lost men. Now Greenpeace seems as interested in taking on the coast guard as the sealers. Yes, there are traffic rules that were no doubt ignored, but when two ships want to occupy the same space and only one should be there in the first place, tempers no doubt flair. I am not saying it is right; just the opposite, but they have a job to do and Greenpeace's only reason being there was to harass them.
That being said I admire the Coast Guard crews because they are willing to lay their lives on the line to rescue others under horrendous conditions. I have also admired Greenpeace for their anti whaling campaigns for I believed that cause justified.
Seal hunters are no longer allowed to take whitecoats

14 Apr 08 - 09:33 AM (#2315076)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

Save the alligator snapping turtle!

14 Apr 08 - 09:50 AM (#2315088)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Bee

Kendall, it's been illegal to take whitecoats for eons.

It's far more frequent that the antisealers come dangerously close to the men working on the ice, literally threatening their lives than that the Coast guard comes to close to the protesters.

Paul Watson, that evil troll, of Sea Shepherd fame and absentee captain of the presently arrested Farley Mowat, has been so disgusting in his methods and his speeches that even Elizabeth May, leader of Canada's Green party, formerly of the Sierra Club, has broken off all ties and publicly denounced Watson. Elizabeth is no stranger to espousing unpopular causes, either - she grew up in a community where her entire family were frequently at odds with all of their immediate neighbours on environmental issues. (And Hi, J and R M, if you're reading this. ;-)

14 Apr 08 - 10:34 AM (#2315131)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: kendall

Eons? I haven't been retired that long!

14 Apr 08 - 10:50 AM (#2315145)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Bee

Kendall:

"You are old, father William..." ;-D

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

"The hunting of harp seal pups (whitecoats) and hooded seal pups (bluebacks) is illegal – and has been since 1987. The Marine Mammal Regulations prohibit the trade, sale or barter of the fur of these pups. The seals that are hunted are self-reliant, independent animals."

14 Apr 08 - 11:17 AM (#2315161)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

My father-in-law told me yesterday that some of the anti-sealers were ramming ice packs that the sealers were on with their boats, trying to break them up. This, of course, put the sealers at risk of drowning. In light of this, I'm not quite as concerned about the Coast Guard vessel bumping up against the anti-sealers' boat as I might otherwise be. He said that the anti-sealers work very hard to try to provoke the sealers into a confrontation so they can film it. The purpose being to try to show the sealers as being violent and ruthless.

14 Apr 08 - 12:38 PM (#2315225)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jim Lad

"I don't enen know what Street Canada is on.... "
Young Street.




Gnu was every inch a sailor... ♫

14 Apr 08 - 01:14 PM (#2315268)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

There is no objective evidence tying harp seals to the decline of the cod fishery. It was a theory clearly advanced to give new life to an industry that was weak and declining, and to explain impact created by commercial over-fishing.

I have never been a commercial fisherman and don't claim to be an expert on that kind of fishing. I have fished on the ocean and underneath the surface and I ate what I took. Perhaps Canadians in the Maritimes need to more fully understand the meaning of the term "finite resource". When a plentiful and renewable resource, such as cod, is exploited to the point where its own renewal is in jeopardy, then the methods and controls that lead to such a state need to be examined in reality, and such bogus claims as the collapse being caused by seals is a detriment to finding and solving the actual problem. Did seals also cause the collapse of the Atlantic halibut, North Sea herring, Argentinian hake, and the Australian Murray River cod fisheries? No, just like the Grand Banks cod, overfishing did. Ask Unilever, one of the largest commercial purchasers of frozen fish products. In 1997, in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund and under concern that fisheries were collapsing at an uncontrollable rate, Unilever helped establish the Marine Stewardship Council to study causes and solutions.

It is a joke to blame seals for the slow recovery of cod stocks. Humans and seals coexisted for hundreds of years around Newfoundland, and the cod fishery was not much affected by seals or the environment. Obviously, the seal consumption of cod will look large relative to the total cod stock if the cod biomass is reduced to abysmally low levels by the fishery - Dr Daniel Pauly Science Magazine

Thanks Peace for calling me a "good guy". I don't think I'm particularly tender hearted. I have no problem with hunting as a means of culling wildlife populations. But I can't equate the seal slaughter to a hunt. Where is the sport in shooting a 2 week old seal pup on an ice floe, bashing in its skull, and peeling off the pelt to sell to Jonny Versace for a fashionable vest?

As to my statement that seals don't take cod, I would clarify that to say that seals food of choice is the larger marine predators that prey on small cod and hatchlings that are the renewal source for the industry, and these predators do include large cod.

14 Apr 08 - 02:02 PM (#2315351)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

Where is the sport in shooting a 2 week old seal pup on an ice floe, bashing in its skull, and peeling off the pelt to sell to Jonny Versace for a fashionable vest?

It has been said repeatedly in this thread that it is illegal to take pups. If they ARE taken it would a criminal act and anyone involved with it would, I should think, be an accessory to the crime. It might be more to the point to have the wearer, the merchant, the maker, the pelt seller, and the poacher all up on charges, preferably before a really harsh judge, no-nonsense, judge.

I don't know about Canadian laws in this respect, but in most States of the US such a conviction would cost you big. Jail time, large fine, community service, loss of whatever was associated with the poaching....

14 Apr 08 - 02:02 PM (#2315352)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

EJ,

Forget the cod. The fucking seals are taking 7.5 billion tons of biomass out of the oceans every year. Everything they eat man could eat. They are competing with the sealer for a living.

They eat codfish, and while they alone cannot be blamed for the collapse, they are hampering the recovery.

Why don't you let wolves roam free among the cattle sheep and goats of the US?   

If you are wearing birch bark shoes, If you don't wear any leather of cotton. If your method of transportation is a pony rescued from the glue factory, if you don't eat any meat and have protested all the cruelty being done to animals in your own state or country. Coon hunting might be a good place to start. Work for the end of irrational and barbaric slaughter in your own country then talk to me..

14 Apr 08 - 02:07 PM (#2315356)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

Part of the problem--I think--was that seal feces was sinking to the bottom and starting to cause the cod to have worms along the belly. (I know zip about fish anatomy, but a friend who worked for FPI was kind enough to arrange a tour of the factory for me and one of the gals doing the filleting(?) put the fish she was working on over a very bright light and yep, there they were.


People, this can be and is an emotional issue. It is sometimes very difficult to keep an emotional balance. We are mostly friends on Mudcat and although it's easy to forget that fact 'in the heat of battle', it is sometimes impossible to undo the long-term harm done to each other with our thoughtless remarks. IMO.

From a guy who's made too many thoughtless remarks.

14 Apr 08 - 02:08 PM (#2315359)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,meself

"WHY is Greenpeace not protesting factory farms or slaughter houses?"

" also wonder why Greenpeace does not protest Greyhound racing in the U.S."

Where's the fun in that? Isn't it much more exciting to be flying around the world, landing in a helicopter on a ship, watching news-video footage of yourself in a salt-sea spray, squinting into the gale ... ?

...................................

"Where is the sport ... "

That's what's known as a straw man - nobody suggested that the sealers go out on the ice for sport. It's serious business.

14 Apr 08 - 02:08 PM (#2315360)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Ebbie

Rap, note that according to the information it is not illegal to hunt "2-week old" pups. Evidently the ban applies only to the 'white coat' pups; that phase is earlier.

14 Apr 08 - 02:10 PM (#2315363)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

This, like everything else, has NO "magic bullet" solution. It's a very complex problem and will require complex solutions. Only politicians believe that "one size fits all" or even most.

14 Apr 08 - 02:30 PM (#2315382)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Bee

Okay. I've had an interesting conversation, during which I took notes, with a local marine biologist, particularly regarding the carcasses left on the ice complaint. It turns out the sealers try to take as much as they can that is of use: the pelt, the large flippers which have most of the meat, and as much of the blubber (to be rendered for omega 3 oils) as they can. They are hampered in taking more because of limited space on their boats. Why don't they have bigger boats? Because Canada caved to the antisealers years ago and banned anything but small vessels taking part in the seal hunt. But in fact, there isn't that much meat on a seal body: it's mostly blubber except on the flippers, which are of course taken - up to the point the sealers run out of cargo space.

It's a certainty anything left on the ice gets eaten, by seabirds and by fish and other sea life, so unless you think humans should be the only beneficiaries of their own kills, nothing is wasted.

Lonesome EJ is partially correct regarding pups being killed. Seal pups are called yellowcoats for about three days after birth, then their coat turns white. About eighteen days later, they start to moult and turn silver with a spotted pattern. Sealers can legally kill a pup at eighteen days, but in fact the pelt is not good because of the moult until about thirty-three days, at which point sealers can take them and profit - but they are small pelts compared to an adult seal.

No one alive can ever remember there being as many seals as there presently are. While no one is blaming the seals for the decline of the codfish, it's a fact that the seals do have an impact on the recovery of the codfish. Seals are voracious eaters and they are wasteful killers. If they find a particularly large school of fish, they will bite the liver containing middle out of every fish they can catch and drop the rest. They mostly take big mature breeding age fish, understandable as an adult seal is a big two metre long animal with great big teeth. This I can vouch for directly, as I have a seal skull, misidentified as a bear by most people because of the large, thick canines.

14 Apr 08 - 02:32 PM (#2315387)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Number 6

I'm with ya Jack ... "Forget the cod. The fucking seals are taking 7.5 billion tons of biomass out of the oceans every year. Everything they eat man could eat. They are competing with the sealer for a living."

Here on the Bay of Fundy they are a real problem for fishermen .... raiding nets, fish farms, weirs ... my son the commercial diver calls them the 'raccoon' of the sea .... he was doing a dive down on Grand Manaan last year when some irate vacationer 'from away' came down to the docks raging on how he witnessed some fishermen shooting seals, they getting into their catch (herring) in the nets ... sheer cruelty was the source of his rage ... little does he understand these fishermen down in that area are not living in the comfort of luxury ... they live a hard dangerous life to scrape a living ... those seals were competing with their livlihood .... and BTW, there are many, many seals in the Bay of Fundy and they are certainly not endangered. Also there is no cod in these waters.

biLL

14 Apr 08 - 02:49 PM (#2315408)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

In regards to current overfishing of cod, that is not being done by Newfoundlanders. They are not allowed to fish for cod commercially, and the quota for sport fishermen is very small. But commercial fishing boats from other countries are not prevented by the government of Canada from over fishing in the waters near Newfoundland. The Skipper (my father-in-law) said that he wishes Canada would respond to this problem the same way that Iceland has done - confront ships from other countries that are overfishing Newfoundland waters. That would help the recovery of the cod stocks. But it doesn't seem likely to happen for some reason.

And Lonesome EJ, not only was that comment about sport a straw man in the way that meself suggested, it's also a straw man in that it mischaractarizes the methods used by most sealers. It is correct to say that most seal fishermen kill young seals who are independent of their mothers using guns, and they do it for livelihood and for food. It is a lie to suggest that most seal fishermen bash in cubs' heads for sport or for the fur industry.

By the way, why are you not protesting the fur industry when other animals are being killed and made to suffer in other places? Foxes raised for fur, for instance, are killed by an electrode that is inserted into their rectums or their mouths and they are electrocuted. Where is your moral outrage about this practice? How about trapping for fur? Animals caught in traps often chew off their own limbs to get free of the traps that are causing them excruciating pain. And those fur animals do not get used for food, unlike the seals in eastern Canada.

The reason people are picking only on the people of eastern Canada, is because they are an easy target. Hardly anyone in the US knows anyone from that part of the world, so people can make the kinds of scurrilous accusations against them that you are making easily without suffering any consequences. It would be very different (and I would suggest, would actually require some courage) for you to confront the people who are doing much worse things in your own community and country.

14 Apr 08 - 03:11 PM (#2315429)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,number 6

Carol ... on the spot in that last paragraph.

BTW ... on a lighter note ... seals love beer, good beer that is ... take a drive over the Reversing Falls Bridge here in Saint John around 7 a.m. in the morning on any given day ... you'll see dozens of them frolicking in the suds being spewed out of the back of the Moosehead Brewery.

biLL

14 Apr 08 - 03:17 PM (#2315436)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Amos

The two collisions caused by the CG commander in that clip were clear use of violent force in disdain of law. Other issues aside, it was maritime thuggery, regardless of the authority behind it.


A

14 Apr 08 - 03:19 PM (#2315438)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

>>seals love beer, good beer that is ... take a drive over the Reversing Falls Bridge here in Saint John around 7 a.m. in the morning on any given day ... you'll see dozens of them frolicking in the suds being spewed out of the back of the Moosehead Brewery.<<

That says a lot for the intelligence of the seals. It doesn't say much for the intelligence of the maritimers who pour away perfectly good beer. ;-)

14 Apr 08 - 03:20 PM (#2315441)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

Well, actuall, Carol C., mink farmers kill and skin the minks and then feed the carcasses to the other minks. Minks are very nasty critters.

A good trapper will make a set where the animal will die, usually by drowning, or use the "instant kill" traps that are now available (made by Conibear, I believe). Professionals learned that a pelt damaged because of the attempts by the animal to escape is worth less than an undamaged one.

14 Apr 08 - 03:27 PM (#2315450)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

I stand corrected, Rapaire. That's good to know.

(The above would be the proper response for people like Lonesome EJ to make when they are given correct information about the seal hunt after they have posted incorrect information.)

14 Apr 08 - 03:28 PM (#2315451)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

if you don't eat any meat and have protested all the cruelty being done to animals in your own state or country. Coon hunting might be a good place to start
Jack, I'll have you know that for years my home was very nearly a coon sanctuary. Coons slept in my chimney in the summer. Coons ate my garbage when berry season was late in coming. And coons polished off about 5 pounds of Japanese carp in my garden pond. When it comes to coons, I have nothing to be ashamed of.

14 Apr 08 - 03:42 PM (#2315471)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

The mass killing or a naturally-occurring species in it's natural habitat is arrogant to say the least. The way it is done with the harp seal is also barbaric.

The Greenpeace activists, Bob Hunter, Watson and others, are jerks who enjoy the thrill of harrassing people, bullying them and even causing their death. Put them in prison.

If people want to harvest the harp seal, figure a way to raise and feed them at grower's expense, and keep the new "farms" as far away from the native habitat as possible. Perhaps Antarctic waters.

If the naturally-occurring population is destroying it's habitat, proof of that should come from scientists, not Enviromental activists, politicos or from people who are motivated by money.

Move the excess population to the extreme ends of the range and help them become established there. That is being done with many species.

14 Apr 08 - 03:44 PM (#2315473)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

It is a lie to suggest that most seal fishermen bash in cubs' heads for sport or for the fur industry. -CarolC

BTW .... clubbing has been outlawed in the seal hunt ... they use a rigle(sic) now days. Sorta like the shot at the back of the head used to but down a bovine -number6



Rifles and hakapiks are permitted. Canadian sealing regulations describe the dimensions of the clubs and the hakapiks, and caliber of the rifles and minimum bullet velocity, that can be used. They state that: "Every person who strikes a seal with a club or hakapik shall strike the seal on the forehead until its skull has been crushed," and that "No person shall commence to skin or bleed a seal until the seal is dead," which occurs when it "has a glassy-eyed, staring appearance and exhibits no blinking reflex when its eye is touched while it is in a relaxed condition." - Wikipedia "Seal Hunting", with quotations from the Canadian Seal Hunting Regulations.

Awaiting your "proper response", Carol.

14 Apr 08 - 03:45 PM (#2315474)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

>>ack, I'll have you know that for years my home was very nearly a coon sanctuary. Coons slept in my chimney in the summer. Coons ate my garbage when berry season was late in coming. And coons polished off about 5 pounds of Japanese carp in my garden pond. When it comes to coons, I have nothing to be ashamed of.<<

I beg to differ. Where is your Mudcat thread protesting the cruel and barbaric hunting of them with dogs, which is little more than a blood sport where dog owners sic their own animals upon these raccoons to watch both animals be injured and the raccoons eventually torn apart?

As you may have gathered, this is very personal to me. You need to clean up your own house before you call my father a barbarian. Do you eat meat? Do you wear leather?

The mere fact that you are communicating on a computer indicates that you enjoy the fruits of our industrial society. You think no animals were harmed in the mining of the materials of your computer? You think that no harm is done in delivering electricity to your house?

OUR SOCIETY HURTS ANIMALS. WE COMPETE WITH ANIMALS FOR SPACE AND RESOURCES. If one modern, industrial, man is a barbarian, all are. These are facts of life. Cast the log out of your own eye, before you point out the mote in mine.

14 Apr 08 - 03:57 PM (#2315486)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Up until this year, the Skipper used a gun exclusively and did not use a club at all. And he has told me that most of the other sealers have been doing the same. This year he is required to have a hakapiks in case the seal does not die from the gunshot. This is to ensure that the seal is dead before it is skinned. JtS has some more information on the regulations regarding this. Most seal hunters use rifles to kill the animals, and most of the animals die from being shot.

14 Apr 08 - 04:00 PM (#2315490)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

pdq, are you a vegetarian yourself who wears no animal products? If not, you're not really in a position to point fingers about barbaric practices either.

Raising animals in animal factories is a hell of a lot crueler to the animal than killing wild animals is. To think otherwise shows extreme ignorance of the reality of animal raising factories.

14 Apr 08 - 04:07 PM (#2315496)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

EJ

It doesn't matter how they are killed as long as it is as quick and humane as possible. This year, new regulations require my father to carry clubs of specific size and weight on his boat in addition to his rifles in case the seals are not yet dead when they are pulled from the water. In that case he is required to kill it with a firm blow to the head and then administer the "blink test" to insure that the animal is dead before it is skinned. This is part of a comprehensive program to address concerns about "cruelty" and to do everything possible to minimize accidental "cruelty".

That said, for the most part, in the hunt that my father and I have participated in, it is extremely rare for the shot that hits the seal not to kill it. The animal is in the water and the only target that it presents are its head and a small part of its neck. A 303 or 3030 round in a target the size of a large honeydew melon usually does enough damage to kill. It is a very sporting hunt. The one time I went Seal hunting, we spent the better part of a day chasing one large seal over half of a fifty square mile bay, and with the action of the waves and the natural advantages that the animal has, we got no opportunity to cleanly shoot. We used half a tank of gas with our 20 merc outboard. Every time we got close, the animal would submerge only to reappear hundreds of meters away in a completely different direction.

14 Apr 08 - 04:09 PM (#2315497)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

Dad does not use a hakapik. Sealers on the ice pack carry them for dual purpose, yes, to dispatch the seals and also for their own safety in navigating ice floes.

14 Apr 08 - 04:15 PM (#2315502)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

My mistake. I thought got the impression that a hakapik was the same thing as a club.

14 Apr 08 - 04:27 PM (#2315515)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: kendall

On one of my early trips to Canada to sail on the Canadian enforcement vessels, I asked Reg Collie, supervisor out of Halifax this question. "Is it true that the sealers club to death those little white seal pups"? His answer, "Yes, they kill every Jesus thing they see."
I retired before the ban on killing seal pups went into effect.

When the early explorers came here the cod were so thick a ship could hardly sail through them. Where were these demon seals then?

The fact is, man has killed off the cod,haddock, hake,pollock, Halibut, flounders, tuna etc. with his too effecient methods.

I remember the local Haddock fishermen talking about shovelling "Ping Pongs" over the side by the ton. (A ping pong is a small Haddock, not big enough for market).

I have witnessed them throwing small flounders over the side using a stick with a nail in the end of it. They would spear the fish and flip it oveboard like there was no end to them. Well guess what? there was an end, and it wasn't the seals that did that!

14 Apr 08 - 04:29 PM (#2315518)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

Ballistics:
Cartridge   Bullet    Muzzle    Velocity       Muzzle   Energy
            Weight    Velocity at 200         Energy   at 200 yds.
                      Ft./Sec. yard          Ft./lbs. Ft./lbs.
.30-30 Win. (150 FP)         2390         1605            1902         858
.30-30 Win. (170 FP)         2200         1619                1827         989
.30-06 Spfd. (150 Sp)         2910         2342                2820         1827
.30-06 Spfd. (180 Sp)         2700         2023                2913         1635

FP = Flat point, necessary because the tip of one bullet rests against the primer of the one in front of it in the magazine.

SP = Spire point, or "pointed point."

Win. = Winchester

Spfd. = Springfield, after the Armory in Mass.

The killing "power" of any of these can be increased by the use of soft point bullets, etc.

14 Apr 08 - 04:32 PM (#2315521)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

I don't think humanity has been very good stewards of the land OR the sea.

14 Apr 08 - 04:40 PM (#2315529)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Sandy Mc Lean

Part of the problem is perception of what a seal really is by people who live far from the sea.. Greenpeace will show cute and cuddly newborns that people fall in love with. It does not stay this way for long. Once weaned it is abandoned by the mother to fend for itself. Many do not survive long in a harsh environment but those who do quickly take on a nasty disposition as a defense mechanism. They snarl, growl and bite as Sir Paul's ex wife quickly found out when she tried to cuddle one for a photo opp. In the water nature has designed them to be (as someone earlier said) a wolf of the sea. The adult seal is not without beauty however and I have spent many fascinating hours watching them.

14 Apr 08 - 04:41 PM (#2315532)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

"...are you a vegetarian yourself who wears no animal products? If not, you're not really in a position to point fingers about barbaric practices either."

Having a 'bad comprehension day' are we? I said doing so by going into the native habitat of a naturally-occurring species. This is a statement about proper game management and does not involve what I eat or wear.

14 Apr 08 - 04:47 PM (#2315538)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

>>When the early explorers came here the cod were so thick a ship could hardly sail through them. Where were these demon seals then?<<

When early explorers came over white bears ranged as far south as where Boston is now. People killed them off. Until the 1970's people replaced the bears in the food chain. There also were a lot more Orcas and (great) white sharks at that time.

Seals eat cod, haddock, hake, pollock, Halibut, flounders. They eat whatever fish is available, that they can catch. I doubt that they are fast enough to hunt tuna.

But that is not the point I am making. I am also not calling them demons. I am simply saying that they compete with man for the fish that are left. Frankly, I am flabbergasted that some others do not see the common sense in the point that I am making.

I am not a fan of some modern commercial fishing methods. I think that Iceland has done it right and Canada has done it wrong. If it were up to me the fisheries management zone would be increased to encompass the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and all fishers would be required to use sustainable methods.

14 Apr 08 - 04:54 PM (#2315546)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Having a 'bad comprehension day' are we? I said doing so by going into the native habitat of a naturally-occurring species. This is a statement about proper game management and does not involve what I eat or wear.

Being a bit selective with your meanings, I see. So it's "barbaric" to hunt an animal in its native habitat, but not to eat an animal that is raised and killed just for you under excruciatingly painful conditions? Your definition of barbaric is as hypocritical as your attitude.

As a matter of fact, the animals you eat and wear suffer a hell of a lot more than the animals that are hunted in the wild, which makes you barbaric as well.

14 Apr 08 - 04:58 PM (#2315548)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Sandy Mc Lean

The seals eat cod but this is a big problem as well! Tune is Seven Spanish Angles. Words copied from Mudcatter GEST's great website.

    SEVEN SPANISH TRAWLERS
He looked down into his cod trap 'n' said,
My God, where have they gone?
He threw his arms up in despair,
For his cod trap it held none.
Then he looked out o'er the raging foam just in time to see,
Seven Spanish trawlers headin' out to open sea.

There were seven Spanish trawlers,
They were fishing in the sun;
The Spanish they caught all the fish,
The Newfies they got none.
Then the clouds appeared, and the fog rolled in,
The sun no longer shone;
And seven Spanish trawlers took all the codfish home.

Then Ol' Brian sent a letter off,
To Frazier in Ottawa:
You fellows better do something,
When they're breaking our fishing law.
Then the government quickly they dispatched,
The good Canadian patrol;
They boarded the Spanish trawlers,
And took them back to port.

There were seven Spanish trawlers,
They were fishing in the sun;
The Spanish they caught all the fish,
The Newfies they got none.
Then the clouds appeared, and the fog rolled in,
The sun no longer shone;
And seven Spanish trawlers took all the codfish home.

14 Apr 08 - 05:06 PM (#2315557)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

Yes, CarolC, the mass slaughter of a native species in it's native habitat can be barbaric. I give you, for example, the American Buffalo (Bison bison) and the river otter.

When people raise and harvest a species of animal, the captive population rises and fall independant of the native one.

The captive herds of animals are raised, fed and owned by their owners. The native ones belong to all of us.

14 Apr 08 - 05:11 PM (#2315563)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

PDQ,

You seem to have a very narrow view of what is "barbaric".

14 Apr 08 - 05:30 PM (#2315576)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Well, you have an interesting definition of "mass slaughter", pdq. Does it all have to happen in a period of a few weeks for you to consider it a "mass slaughter"? How about deer season here in the US? Wouldn't you consider that "mass slaughter" in the animals' native habitat? But we justify it because the deer overpopulate if we don't. How about duck and goose season? Wouldn't you call that mass slaughter?

Why are people only pointing fingers at the seal hunt in eastern Canada? It's because they can raise more money using pictures of cute and cuddly little doe-eyed furry seal babies (which are not even being killed at that stage of development) than they can using pictures of other animals which are being killed in even greater numbers. That, and they don't have the guts to stand up to the sports hunting industry in this country, so they pick on people who are easier targets.

14 Apr 08 - 05:46 PM (#2315595)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

I have mentioned that on Mudcat several times, CarolC. I call it the Bambi Syndrome. I have also pointed out that all plants and animals should protected if need be, not just mammals with big eyes.

A broad definition of 'barbaric' (note: not narrow view) means 'uncivilized'.

14 Apr 08 - 05:59 PM (#2315604)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

You have mentioned which, pdq? The unbalanced criticism of the seal hunt, or protests of your own against hunting in the US?

14 Apr 08 - 06:17 PM (#2315623)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

(the following has nothing to do with CarolC or her obcession with making every argument about herself)


"Taking into account this unrecorded killing as well as the killing of harp seals in the unregulated open-water hunt in Greenland, along with mortality caused by fisheries bycatch, it has been estimated that a total of around 465,000 harp seals in the northwest Atlantic population were killed each year from 1997-1999. These figures exceed the current replacement yields of the population and there is therefore concern that the population is declining as a result. The level of the current hunt is, on average, at the same level as it was in the 1950s - 1970s, when the northwest Atlantic harp seal population declined by as much as 50%. Population models considered by a meeting of the Canadian National Marine Mammal Review Committee in April 2000 calculated that the harp seal population would decline if hunting were to continue at the current level and age structure.

The killing of "whitecoats" (pups younger than 2-3 weeks) for their fur was a major part of the Canadian and East and West Ice hunts. In 1983 however the European Economic Community, in response to public opinion, instituted a ban on the import of whitecoat products, a move that resulted in a drop in the number of seals killed. The hunting of whitecoats in Canada for commercial purposes has now been banned since 1987, but is still permitted for personal use.

It is thought that the illegal killing of whitecoats may have taken place in 1997 when a conservation group reported that up to 20,000 whitecoats had been killed and illegally sold."

                                     from here

14 Apr 08 - 06:24 PM (#2315629)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Looks like you're the one trying to make it about me, pdq. But if you think you can find anything from me in this thread that is about me, I'd like to see it.

14 Apr 08 - 06:28 PM (#2315631)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: gnu

Maybe the Greenpees oughta take all that money and take care of the poor fuckers who ain't got enough to eat, to clothe... Maybe some pics of young, red headed, blue eyed children without.... nah, that wouldn't fill their coffers.

Kendall... and others... as far as cod halting ships way back when... that was before the factory ships from Spain and Portugal and other countries started raping the cod stocks (and others) and processing fish at sea. AND, they started hauling in massive nets full of fish such that 1/4 of the netfull was so damaged from the sheer weight of the haul that it got dumped.

It goes deep, and there are many things that should be corrected... but, don't anyone call those poor fuckers "barbaric" or "irrational".

I watched Paul Watson on the evening news... he is some lucky that is not the case. Otherwise, he would sleep with the fishes.

14 Apr 08 - 06:28 PM (#2315632)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

I rest my case.

14 Apr 08 - 06:55 PM (#2315657)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Looks like you've made it about you now, pdq.

14 Apr 08 - 06:56 PM (#2315658)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

How still lies the bay, in the light western airs
Which blow from the crimson horizon
Once more we tack home, with a dry empty hold
Saving gas with the breezes so fair
She's a kindly cape islander, old but still sound
But so lost in the long liner's shadow
Make and Break and make do, but the fish are so few
That she won't be replaced should she founder

Now its so hard to not think of before the big war
When the cod went so cheap, but so plenty
Foreign trawlers go by now with long seeking eyes
Taking all where we seldom take any
And the young folk don't stay with the fisherman's ways
Long ago they all moved to the cities
And the ones left behind old and tired and blind
Won't work for a pound, for a penny.

In Make and Break Harbour the boats are so few
Too many are pulled up and rotten.
Most houses stand empty, old nets hung to dry
Are blown away lost and forgotten

Now I can see the big draggers have stirred up the bay
Leaving lobster traps smashed on the bottom
Can they think it don't pay to respect the old ways
That make and break men have not forgotten
For we still keep our time to the turn of the tide
In this boat that I built with my father
Still lifts to the sky, the "one lunger" and I
Still talk like old friends on the water.

14 Apr 08 - 07:09 PM (#2315674)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: gnu

Compelling arguement pdq. Don't feed or clothe any Atlantic Canucks, though. Sleep well.

14 Apr 08 - 07:31 PM (#2315699)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

I think people are taking the term 'barbaric' personally. I should look it up, but I beleive it come from the pirates along the Barbary Coast of Africa. These people did acts that were considered wrong or 'uncivilized'. Other people began to be called Barbarians and eventually, such acts called barbaric.

14 Apr 08 - 07:44 PM (#2315707)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Main Entry:
    bar·bar·ic Listen to the pronunciation of barbaric
Pronunciation:
    \bär-ˈber-ik, -ˈba-rik\
Function:
    adjective
Date:
    15th century

1 a: of, relating to, or characteristic of barbarians b: possessing or characteristic of a cultural level more complex than primitive savagery but less sophisticated than advanced civilization2 a: marked by a lack of restraint : wild b: having a bizarre, primitive, or unsophisticated quality3: barbarous 3
— bar·bar·i·cal·ly Listen to the pronunciation of barbarically \-i-k(ə-)lē\ adverb

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/barbaric



Main Entry:
    bar·bar·i·an Listen to the pronunciation of barbarian
Pronunciation:
    \bär-ˈber-ē-ən\
Function:
    adjective
Etymology:
    Latin barbarus — more at barbarous
Date:
    14th century

1 : of or relating to a land, culture, or people alien and usually believed to be inferior to another land, culture, or people 2 : lacking refinement, learning, or artistic or literary culture



Main Entry:
    bar·ba·rous Listen to the pronunciation of barbarous
Pronunciation:
    \ˈbär-b(ə-)rəs\
Function:
    adjective
Etymology:
    Latin barbarus, from Greek barbaros foreign, ignorant
Date:
    15th century

1 a: uncivilized b: lacking culture or refinement : philistine2: characterized by the occurrence of barbarisms 3: mercilessly harsh or cruel

14 Apr 08 - 07:48 PM (#2315711)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

By the way, the bison slaughter was not barbarous. It was obscene. It wasn't done to feed or clothe anyone. It was done as a tactic in a war of genocide against the indigenous people of the region in which it took place. The seal hunt is nothing like that.

14 Apr 08 - 07:57 PM (#2315719)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: kendall

Thanks Raparie, I was about to post that very song. Stan said it all.

I remember watching the Spanish "pair trawlers" towing nets so big it took two vessels to tow them. The Russians took hundreds of tons of fish with their mid water trawls, they made our puny efforts look silly!

14 Apr 08 - 08:29 PM (#2315741)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Sandy Mc Lean

Speaking of the Russians does anyone wonder why Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd don't go to interfere with their seal hunts? Do you suppose that Paul Watson knows not to fuck with Putin? One of those big Russian icebreakers would perhaps not just deliver a brush along the side.
Anyways they were in court in Sydney today. Story here:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=445147

14 Apr 08 - 09:30 PM (#2315773)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

This is what the Skipper was telling me (from Sandy's article)...

Nova Scotia sealer Shane Briand said that at one point, the Mowat broke the ice up beneath a sealer as he stood on a floe.

Mr. Briand said the much larger Mowat harassed his ship and crew until a coast guard icebreaker arrived and put itself between the two ships.

The Fisheries department says that during the incident, the coast guard's Des Groseilliers icebreaker, which had been dispatched to help, was "grazed" by the Mowat, while the Sea Shepherd Society says its ship was rammed.

The ice breaker was doing the right thing when it put itself between the sealers and the Farley Mowat. The seal protesters were trying to kill seal hunters.

14 Apr 08 - 09:33 PM (#2315777)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Emma B

I love Stan's song but......
not just in Canada

14 Apr 08 - 09:40 PM (#2315781)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

Go to Kodiak or Unalaska and ask the fisherfolk about the "foreign trawlers" that scrape the bottom clean. The Japanese, the Russians.... Ask the native Aleut or Athabascans about the decline in the salmon runs. It's not the sport fishers (although they have a small part in it), it's the factory ships.

14 Apr 08 - 10:36 PM (#2315804)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Beer

Dad was a fisherman and loved it. Use to go out for the cod with him and the herring run, mackerel was also a good catch. But it all came to an end. When we moved to Nova Scotia from Prince Edward Island I use to go out clam digging when the tide went out. I remember asking Dad once "What are those big boats out there"? He said very sadly that they were dragger's and were putting the small fisherman out of business.
I really don't have much to contribute to this thread because I really don't know much or have had anything to do with sealing. In my younger day I hunted and killed a wide variety of species. But it was to help to put food on the table. When I left home and was able to afford to put on the table, I never went hunting again.

I never was a lover of Greenpeace. I still believe that they go way over board on the sealing issue. But that is probably because I also see it as a means for the fishermen to survive. I think that sealers are very aware that they are in the spotlight and so Greenpeace to me has done their job. Over the years regulation have come out (and probably because of Greenpeace)that keep sealers in the government eyes "in check".
What I would like to see Greenpeace get involved in is the lack of punishment that takes place when there is someone found treating (in most cases Dogs )animal's inhuman. No, don't refer back to sealing because it is not the same thing. When your starve a dog and let them live in their feces, this is inhuman and the person that does this should be made to pay and pay dearly. Most time they get a warning or a small fine. Now if Greenpeace would only take up this cause I would gladly contribute monetary wise to help them fight to have the law changed.

Beer (adrien)

14 Apr 08 - 11:12 PM (#2315821)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Bee

In Paul Watson's early days of protesting, he did a lot of foolhardy things. One time he chained himself to a sealing vessel and stood on the ice beside it. A large swell lifted the vessel and he was pulled off the ice into the water. The sealers he'd been harassing - he'd pushed some of their gear into the water - rescued him, took him aboard their ship, warmed him up, fed him, cared for him. Now he returns the favour by saying their lives are worth less than the seals they kill. The man is disgusting.

15 Apr 08 - 01:20 AM (#2315859)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: M.Ted

Maybe you can fix some of that flipper pie for your next Obama meeting, Jack--they'll love you for it. I only wish Martin Gibson were around to see this--

15 Apr 08 - 01:27 AM (#2315861)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

>>Maybe you can fix some of that flipper pie for your next Obama meeting, Jack--they'll love you for it. I only wish Martin Gibson were around to see this--<<

Yes wit like that should be seen and appreciated by a horrible malicious troll. Of course seal meat is banned by US import laws, so even I would have to go home to eat some.

15 Apr 08 - 03:40 AM (#2315907)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jim Lad

I watched Paul Watson on "Mike Duffy Live" during last years seal hunt. He was supposed to be debating the issue with a government representative. His unfortunate victim turned out to be a female Senator, quite elderly and entirely unaware of what to expect from Paul Watson.
He brutalized her with insults, irrational statements and aggressive body language to the point that the woman was reduced to tears and CTV panned the camera away from her. Mike Duffy, an absolute gem of a man, brought the interview to a close and the following day, brought in a more agile politician to discuss the issue, minus the thug.
This man, Paul Watson, I thought, claims to have compassion for helpless creatures and yet when faced with a senior citizen, behaves like a monster.
Today, Mike Duffy's guest was none other than Loyola Hearn. A soft spoken Newfoundlander with whom I am some day destined to sip a oold one.
To those of you not fortunate enough to watch Mike Duffy Live as part of your daily routine, here is today's interview. and judge for yourself as to who is the barbarian here.
I have eaten a lot of wild game in my life and see no real difference, other than taste & texture, between this and farmed animals.
I know, they have sad eyes & stuff and I'm as big a sucker as anyone else for that kind of thing but you really should take a look at the big picture before weighing in on this one.

15 Apr 08 - 04:14 AM (#2315922)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor

Duffy is a Gem I watched him regularly when I lived in Ottawa.

Watson is not my favorite person.


I broke a tooth tonight on a strawberry seed in some jam.. I can't sleep. I just took some aspirin and am sipping a couple of ounce of Jamesons to numb my mouth.

My tooth ache reminds me of the pain I feel every year at this time. When my friends and family are called names by people all over the world. When I call home, my father talks about his preparations for the hunt and about the latest affront from the protesters. Colorado is known for the Rockies, Maine for the lobster, Vermont for maple syrup. Since Brigitte Bardot in the 1970's my home is where famous air head hypocrites go to feel good about themselves by putting down people who are not in a position to respond on the same level.

PDQ makes a good point about the "Bambi Syndrome." I suffered from it myself. We watched "Wonderful World of Disney" every Sunday as a family. I'll never forget the look on my Grandfather's face when he proudly showed me the stuffed Whitecoat, he had had stuffed as a souvenir of the hunt and I told him how cruel that was. I was five or six. But even then. When he told me that at sixteen he had signed up to go to the front and hunt seals to help support a family and perhaps save something so that he could afford to get married some day. He was born in 1910. This would probably have been the spring of 1927. He risked his life on the floes. There were no facilities to bathe or wash clothing. He was covered in gore and rotting blood and seal fat for days. The smell of the men in the quarters of that cramped little ship was literally breathtaking. That was the day, I began to understand that our meat didn't magically appear in our supermarkets, that the shoes on my feet meant the death of an animal, that we are not above the savage nature of the natural world, that we were part of it. It was also when I started to comprehend the importance of family and heritage, and the how I needed to be grateful for my forefather's sacrifices.   

I've seen and heard these arguments every year since I was about 11 or 12. I've seen and heard them from every side.

I want to apologize to anyone who I have offended in this thread especially EJ, who I remember, from a getaway as a fine and pleasant man. By way of explanation, I will say that the emotions raised are painful to me, much worse than my sore tooth. every year I promise myself to discuss these issues calmly and rationally. Every year i lose my temper. Sorry all.

15 Apr 08 - 04:58 AM (#2315947)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor

and thus it continues

It is nothing but a joke for Mr. Watson with his bag of toonies.

15 Apr 08 - 06:44 AM (#2316004)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Bee

Jack, it's hard not to lose one's temper in some circumstances. I sympathize.

Oh, and if you can't get to a dentist right away, warm salted water used as a mouth rinse will often temporarily relieve tooth pain.

15 Apr 08 - 08:34 AM (#2316096)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: kendall

I forget which Indian chief it was who said it, but he said to the white government rep. "When the last river is polluted, when the last tree is cut down, and when the last fish is caught, only then will you know, YOU CAN'T EAT MONEY"

15 Apr 08 - 12:04 PM (#2316286)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jim Lad

It is a sustainable industry.
On Mr. Watson.... He could have killed the hunters with his actions.

15 Apr 08 - 12:07 PM (#2316288)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

That's true, Kendall. And the best way for you and those who expresses moral indignation over the seal hunt to live up to their rhetoric would be to take all of the energy they're devoting to harassing the people of eastern Canada over the seal hunt, and put it into efforts to persuade the government of Canada to stop allowing the foreign trawlers to take all of the cod from the waters of eastern Canada.

So who among you will start that thread?

15 Apr 08 - 12:45 PM (#2316333)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor

No you can't eat money. But you can buy food with it. ;-)

15 Apr 08 - 01:04 PM (#2316357)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: bankley

kendall.... that was Totanka Yotanka of the Hunkpapa Lakota....

aka Sitting Bull...



I once heard about a fella that once went out on a ski-doo but had to walk back home after he blew a seal....

15 Apr 08 - 01:23 PM (#2316380)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: gnu

I was fishing in Labrador, near Rigolet. Two lads stopped on their way by. Obviously liquored up, they just had to show us the 334 speckles, all around 4 pounds. My buddy was rather POd and asked them if they knew what the bag limit was... "Ash mush ash tha bag will hold!", accompanied by great guffaws. Sad, perhaps. But I always thought they would share them around town, hopefully.

15 Apr 08 - 01:26 PM (#2316386)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Here's something to get up in arms about. Why do I never see any threads full of moral outrage about this practice from people like Lonesome EJ and the others who start threads like this one?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5446451367745063142&q=bottom+trawlers&total=60&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0&hl=en

15 Apr 08 - 01:30 PM (#2316390)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor

Gnu,

I am sorry to say that there are a small minority of Newfoundlanders who are selfish enough to ignore sport fishing laws and stupid enough to show off when they do. We generally called them poachers. Many of them get caught, get fined and lose their rods, their boots, their tackle, their boats and their trucks to confiscation.

15 Apr 08 - 01:48 PM (#2316412)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Bee

It's the same everywhere, there are always a few people who think it fun to ignore hunting/fishing limits, permits and seasons, and protected status critter laws. I personally am a rat, and tell people up front that I will rat on them if they give me a reason.

I have likely saved, in my little area, dozens of mergansers, a few loons, beaver, otter and hawks as a consequence of this policy, without ever having to actually do anything. I'm perfectly friendly about it. It's a fact, local men in their cups will boast about such things, and the law abiding majority of men usually won't say boo to them for some gawd-stupid manly reason. I smile gaily and state forthrightly why I disagree with their daring deeds, and that if I catch them, I will call the law.

15 Apr 08 - 02:02 PM (#2316428)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

If I were in Gnu's boat and had seen that, there would not be much I could do. They have to be caught red handed with "the goods" for effective prosecution. If I had seen these poachers and a game warden soon afterward. I would tell the warden all I knew.

15 Apr 08 - 02:09 PM (#2316436)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

Guy out here saw a man get out of a truck, crawl through a fence, and shoot a mule deer. Now, this was two weeks ago and very much out of season. The guy stopped and took pictures with his cell phone and then did a really stupid thing: he confronted the people. Fortunately all they did was cuss him out; he got another picture of the rifle being retrieved from the weeds where it had been left.

He drove to his father's house and called the cops. The cops took pictures of the blood trail from the dead deer, the pictures the guy took, and three young men, well into their beer, were locked up for a LOT of offenses -- seems they had a meth lab in the house as well as stolen goods, other poached animals, stolen guns, and videotapes of one of them having sex with a minor.

The guy who took the pictures got an "Attaboy!" from the cops -- and a check for $10,000 from some private citizens who thought he did Good.

Oh, yeah -- the poacher was firing toward an occupied dwelling, too.

15 Apr 08 - 02:41 PM (#2316468)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

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.

15 Apr 08 - 03:08 PM (#2316490)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST

>>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.

15 Apr 08 - 03:08 PM (#2316492)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

Oops, I was the guest.

15 Apr 08 - 03:15 PM (#2316503)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

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.

15 Apr 08 - 04:02 PM (#2316561)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

Beg your pardon.

15 Apr 08 - 04:09 PM (#2316573)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

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.

15 Apr 08 - 05:40 PM (#2316674)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: gnu

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.

15 Apr 08 - 05:48 PM (#2316684)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

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. ;-)

15 Apr 08 - 07:00 PM (#2316767)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

Mike Duffy interviews Hearn and Watson.

15 Apr 08 - 09:02 PM (#2316847)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jim Lad

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

Amen!

15 Apr 08 - 09:03 PM (#2316848)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jim Lad

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

15 Apr 08 - 10:15 PM (#2316893)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor

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

16 Apr 08 - 01:39 AM (#2316974)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,dianavan

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.

16 Apr 08 - 11:19 AM (#2317310)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6

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

16 Apr 08 - 12:03 PM (#2317356)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

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.

16 Apr 08 - 12:33 PM (#2317377)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

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?"

16 Apr 08 - 12:41 PM (#2317385)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

>>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.

16 Apr 08 - 12:47 PM (#2317389)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

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

16 Apr 08 - 12:55 PM (#2317402)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: number 6

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

16 Apr 08 - 12:55 PM (#2317405)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

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"

16 Apr 08 - 01:06 PM (#2317412)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: quokka

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?'

16 Apr 08 - 01:13 PM (#2317416)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

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.

16 Apr 08 - 01:14 PM (#2317417)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

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.

16 Apr 08 - 01:21 PM (#2317421)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

>>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.

16 Apr 08 - 01:21 PM (#2317422)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

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

16 Apr 08 - 01:50 PM (#2317445)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST

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.

16 Apr 08 - 01:51 PM (#2317446)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

the last two were me.

16 Apr 08 - 03:24 PM (#2317553)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

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."

16 Apr 08 - 03:27 PM (#2317557)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

"rephrase my initial statements" I should have said.

16 Apr 08 - 03:47 PM (#2317589)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

>>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.

16 Apr 08 - 04:00 PM (#2317603)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Rapparee

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

16 Apr 08 - 05:16 PM (#2317694)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: M.Ted

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--

16 Apr 08 - 06:37 PM (#2317758)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

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.

16 Apr 08 - 08:35 PM (#2317829)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: M.Ted

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

17 Apr 08 - 01:43 AM (#2317965)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

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.

17 Apr 08 - 02:13 AM (#2317985)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor

Oops

>>resurface dozens of miles away<<

should be hundreds of meters.

17 Apr 08 - 03:35 AM (#2318012)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Barry Finn

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

17 Apr 08 - 11:01 AM (#2318288)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

...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.

17 Apr 08 - 11:13 AM (#2318295)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

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?

17 Apr 08 - 11:17 AM (#2318299)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

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.

17 Apr 08 - 11:42 AM (#2318317)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

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.

17 Apr 08 - 11:44 AM (#2318320)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

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.

17 Apr 08 - 11:45 AM (#2318323)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor

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?

17 Apr 08 - 11:49 AM (#2318326)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

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

17 Apr 08 - 11:50 AM (#2318328)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

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

17 Apr 08 - 11:51 AM (#2318330)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

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

17 Apr 08 - 11:56 AM (#2318338)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

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.

17 Apr 08 - 11:57 AM (#2318340)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor

The great auk was the original penguin. (pinwing)

17 Apr 08 - 11:57 AM (#2318341)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

I agree with you, buddy.

17 Apr 08 - 11:58 AM (#2318343)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor

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

17 Apr 08 - 11:59 AM (#2318345)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor

know better

17 Apr 08 - 12:06 PM (#2318350)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

You have nothing but your opinion to back that statement.

Please do some research on the sardine population collapse in California. One year billions of them, a few years later, almost completely gone. Nobody knows the minimum population harp seals that would trigger such a collapse, so we have no right to risk that happening. Go buy yerseff a 'tin' of tuna.

17 Apr 08 - 12:07 PM (#2318351)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Lonesome EJ

From the official site of the Canadian Seal Association (the Seal Industry group)...Meat processing on a commercial basis has always been minimal since consumption is restricted to the domestic market in Atlantic and Arctic Canada especially in Newfoundland. The hunt is not done for the meat, not on the idnustrial level.

Sorry Peace, the meat question doesn't come down to "either its right or wrong to kill animals". If a rabid dog attacks your wife, we can all agree its right to kill it. If we're hungry for chicken, and most of us are..just ask Col Sanders..most of us think it's right to kill a chicken. When a bear is shot by a celebrity in a pen from the safety of a tree stand in order to have his picture taken with his kill, it's wrong to kill the animal. When animals are killed for no useful purpose, it is always wrong. Now, if CarolC and Jack and the rest think there is a useful purpose, they'll go on doing it, or condoning doing it anyway. If the purpose is stated as "it's for the meat", then that certainly is bullshit. If the purpose stated is to allow the cod to reestablish, that at least is debatable, although almost all science agrees that the seals don't have that kind of impact.
No argument that humans have done a lousy job of stewardship of the planet's resources, but scapegoating one species for our destruction of another is not an answer.
And, all respect to the fairness of most of your views, Peace, I and others have the right to criticize and voice our opinions on anything we please, in or outside of Canada. I believe that my arguments in this thread have been for the most part rational and reserved. I have tried to take the opposition's viewpoint into consideration, and have learned something from the exchange.
CarolC, deer are killed and processed, primarily for the meat, by individual hunters. As I have said before, I have nothing against either hunting or meat eating.

17 Apr 08 - 12:10 PM (#2318354)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

How about trophy hunters, Lonesome EJ? Where is your protest of that practice?

17 Apr 08 - 12:13 PM (#2318356)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

And if killing "only" for fur is not a legitimate reason to kill, where is your protest of animals being trapped only for their fur in the US?

17 Apr 08 - 12:21 PM (#2318361)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

EJ,

>>.Meat processing on a commercial basis has always been minimal since consumption is restricted to the domestic market in Atlantic and Arctic Canada especially in Newfoundland. The hunt is not done for the meat, not on the idnustrial level.

CarolC, deer are killed and processed, primarily for the meat, by individual hunters. As I have said before, I have nothing against either hunting or meat eating.<<

Are the deer processed? on an industrial level? .

Let me help you with that answer. No. You will have to split some very very very fine hair to say that the deer hunt was more moral than the seal cull.
Ohioans kill deer for meat and trophies. Newfoundlanders kill seals for meat, fur and omega 3 fatty acid acid supplements.

PDQ your arguments are are also descending into silly territory.
Killing Buffalo on their natural turf when there are 19 million OK
Killing seals when they are on their own turf when there are six million and the population is growing, not OK.

17 Apr 08 - 12:45 PM (#2318386)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

Jack the Sailor and CarolC are special.

They were the tag team champions of their trailer park.

17 Apr 08 - 01:02 PM (#2318402)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: meself

What the heck is that supposed to mean? (Does the term 'class prejudice' come to mind?)

17 Apr 08 - 01:06 PM (#2318405)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

"And, all respect to the fairness of most of your views, Peace, I and others have the right to criticize and voice our opinions on anything we please, in or outside of Canada. "

And something I said indicated to you that you don't have that right?

17 Apr 08 - 01:10 PM (#2318407)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: meself

"scapegoating one species for our destruction of another is not an answer"

Nor is sanctifying one species for our destruction of others ...

17 Apr 08 - 01:10 PM (#2318408)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

"Violence against sealers OK: activist
Last updated Apr 19 2005 10:54 AM ADT
CBC News
ST. JOHN'S – A senior member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society – which has spent the last month campaigning against the East Coast seal hunt – says violence is necessary to bring the seal industry to an end. Jerry Vlasak, a long-time board member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has even gone so far in the past as to endorse assassination as a means to save animal life – views that have prompted British authorities from barring him entry to their country. Earlier this month, Vlasak protested the spring hunt off the Magdalen Islands. "I was punched in the face by a sealer with his bare knuckles while I was trying to have a rational conversation," he said. However, it was Vlasak who was charged with interfering with the seal hunt – and it is not his only cause. A California physician, Vlasak has spoken on behalf of such groups as the Animal Liberation Front, which is considered a terrorist threat by the FBI. Vlasak once told an animal rights conference that killing research scientists would save lab animals.

"If these vivisectors were being targeted for assassination, and call it political assassination or what have you … strictly from a fear and intimidation factor, that would be an effective tactic," he said.

Such comments were enough to get Vlasak banned from entering Britain last year. In an interview with CBC, Vlasak did not back down from those views, and said sealers are in the same league as animal researchers. "Are these people comparable to people that chop up animals in laboratories just to further their academic careers? Yeah, I think they're all abhorrent in a certain way, yes," he said. "The threat of violence would be another way to stop them and I would be behind that threat." David Martosko, a Washington researcher who tracks groups like the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, says Vlasak represents a dangerous side of the animal rights movement. "They are not animal welfarists, they're animal liberationists," he says. "That's a very, very dangerous philosophy to espouse, especially if you're willing cross the line into violence to achieve it." While British officials have barred Vlasak from entering their country, Canadian authorities knew nothing about him or the violence he endorses. Vlasak will be back in Canada in the coming months to fight charges laid at the seal hunt."

17 Apr 08 - 01:12 PM (#2318409)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

Sure gets murky in them waters, don't it?

17 Apr 08 - 01:17 PM (#2318414)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: meself

This guy's views do not seem terribly inconsistent with those of Watson, who has apparently called the human race 'a virus - like AIDS'. Note his reaction to the recent deaths of four sealers ...

17 Apr 08 - 02:34 PM (#2318495)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: M.Ted

I don't understand why it's wrong to kill deer, but not wrong to kill seals.

17 Apr 08 - 02:48 PM (#2318508)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Bee

PDQ, did you think that 'trailer park' jab was funny? It wasn't.

17 Apr 08 - 03:06 PM (#2318534)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Is it wrong to kill deer, M Ted?


Jack the Sailor and CarolC are special.

They were the tag team champions of their trailer park.

What an ignorant thing to say.

17 Apr 08 - 03:10 PM (#2318537)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor

I have no problem with killing deer. But EJ just said the deer hut was OK while the Seal Hunt wasn't.

He's bambified without giving a hoot about Bambi.

17 Apr 08 - 03:27 PM (#2318551)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

Gee whiz, CarolC, you'd think from your response that I had insulted a Muslim.

17 Apr 08 - 03:31 PM (#2318556)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

I can see your shoes under those white robes, pdq.

17 Apr 08 - 03:36 PM (#2318564)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

Ah, CarolC, the "wind-up insult machine".

As has been been pointed out many times, you make every thread abou you. Look up NPD in your spare time.

17 Apr 08 - 03:38 PM (#2318568)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

No, it's people like you who make threads about me. That's because in the absence of any kind of legitimate argument, you resort to personal attacks (like the trailer park comment).

17 Apr 08 - 03:47 PM (#2318579)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor

There is nothing to be ashamed of in living in a trailer park. A trailer park is just a place to live and ours was clean and peaceful out lot was full of of trees. There are good people in trailer parks and bad. Just as there are good and bad here on the Mudcat.

I think that once a person resorts to name calling and stereotypes instead of discussion, he is telling everyone that he considers the discussion a contest which he has lost and now wants to start another type of contest which he thinks he can win. I'm not interested in that on this thread. But if he wants to start another, and the moderators don't mind, the trailer park comment was clearly intended to be a personal attack, I have an insult contest with him. I'll be his huckleberry.

But on this thread we are discussing a serious issue in a mature manner.

17 Apr 08 - 03:47 PM (#2318580)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

By the way, pdq, the tone and content of your personal attacks on this thread (and one or two others) lead me to believe that you are one of the people who used to make personal attacks on me as an anonymous guest back when it was possible to do that here.

17 Apr 08 - 03:50 PM (#2318584)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

A limit of 275,000 per year, eh?

"In Greenland, harp seal hunting is unregulated. Combined with the number of seals killed as fishery bycatch, estimates of around 465,000 harp seals in the northwest Atlantic population were killed each year from 1997-1999. These figures exceed the birth rate and therefore there are concerns that harp seal populations are declining. Harp seals are killed at the same rate as they were between 1950-1970 when the northwest Atlantic harp seal population declined by as much as 50%.

Juvenile 'whitecoats' were often killed for their fur in Canada and in the Arctic, however public outcry in 1983 influenced the European Economic Community to ban the import of whitecoat products, and in Canada, commercial hunting of whitecoats has been banned since 1987.

Unfortunately, it appears that Canadian sealers are searching for new markets in Canada and internationally, and hope to persuade the United States and the European Union to lift trade barriers on seal products. Not only is harp seal oil marketed, male harp seal genitals are exported to Asia as 'aphrodisiacs'."

                         from here

17 Apr 08 - 04:01 PM (#2318595)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

"It was the commercial demand for harp seal oil and skins in the late 18th century that gave rise to the sealing industry. By 1850 the annual seal hunt was worth between $1.0 and $1.25 million to Newfoundland. At that time much of this revenue came from the sale of oil, an odourless, tasteless, clear liquid obtained by rendering (melting down) the thick layer of fat attached to the skin. Harp seal oil became valued as a fuel for lamps, a cooking oil, and a lubricant.

Since the 1950's, fur and leather, oil and meat have been the principal products of the hunt, representing approximately 76%, 10%, and 14%, respectively, of the income derived by Canadian sealers. The value added to Atlantic Canada's economy in 1982 was estimated at $10 to $12 million. This included revenues to sealers in the neighbourhood of $500,000 derived from the sale of carcasses and flippers for food, mainly in Newfoundland."


Lots more definitive information at this site:

                  here

17 Apr 08 - 04:05 PM (#2318597)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

Thanks for the info PDQ. Mostly they support my points.
Do you know that Greenland is not part of Canada?
Do you know that 1999 was nine years ago?

17 Apr 08 - 04:08 PM (#2318600)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

By the way, my trailer is a double wide. 1742 square feet. A real beaut with jetted spa and a built-in stereo. *smile*

17 Apr 08 - 04:11 PM (#2318606)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Ours was a travel trailer, but we live in a house now.

17 Apr 08 - 04:11 PM (#2318607)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

and your wrestling uniform? :-)

17 Apr 08 - 06:11 PM (#2318728)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: gnu

I have eaten seal. Anyone else?... besides the obvious crowd of poor Atlantic Canucks. Did NOT care for it. Nor did I care for the Caribou stew, but, when in Makkovik.... yer lucky ta get fed.

17 Apr 08 - 06:18 PM (#2318744)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

IMO, the best way to have cariboo is slow roasted with liquid.

17 Apr 08 - 07:03 PM (#2318786)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: M.Ted

Carol--You're the one who wants people to let the seal hunt alone and protest the deer hunt instead.

I think it's absurd for you to tell people what they should or shouldn't protest. It is also some what amusing that someone who is morally opposed to eating meat should be such an aggressive advocate of the, ah, "Seal Thinning"--

17 Apr 08 - 10:07 PM (#2318877)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

You're the one who wants people to let the seal hunt alone and protest the deer hunt instead.

No I'm not, M Ted. You're putting words in my mouth. What I am saying is that if you protest the seal hunt and not the deer hunt, you are being hypocritical. And in the case of Lonesome EJ's arguments, singling out the killing of seals for fur for condemnation in the absence of condemning all other kinds of killing of animals for fur is being hypocritical. And it's also condescending, patronizing, and incredibly arrogant.

17 Apr 08 - 10:13 PM (#2318880)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

It is also some what amusing that someone who is morally opposed to eating meat should be such an aggressive advocate of the, ah, "Seal Thinning"--

I never said I don't eat meat because I'm morally opposed to it. You're putting words in my mouth here as well. The only thing I've said is that I don't eat meat. Try actually reading what I write before responding to it.

17 Apr 08 - 10:20 PM (#2318888)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: M.Ted

You're right, of course--it is rather trying to read your posts--

17 Apr 08 - 10:26 PM (#2318892)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

So don't read them. But you make yourself look foolish if you respond to them without actually knowing what's in them.

17 Apr 08 - 10:39 PM (#2318899)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Jack the Sailor

Looks like M.Ted is turning his back on the debate in favor of pooh tossing. As I said to PDQ. Start yourself a shit flinging thread and get permission from the moderators. I'll be your huckleberry.

17 Apr 08 - 10:57 PM (#2318910)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Barry Finn

"why are the people who are protesting the seal hunt not also protesting the deer hunt?"

Deer do not eat cod?

Do deer hunters gather in large groups then herd deer them then kill them in large numbers?
Do deer hunters kill off the young & not the adults?
Are the methods in hunting the same & does one have a better sporting chance than the other?

No, they also don't take the young & there are laws prohibiting the number one hunter can take per season & they make the taking of females into consideration too.

I don't see that we're comparing apples to apples in this comparsion.

Now if I had lobster traps & lived by the sea I'd take lobsters, I love them as much as I like beef, pork, lamb, chicken, fish & shellfish, I'm not big on veggies but I do like fruit. But I believe that lobsters shouldn't be taken at the rate they're allowed. Their length should be extended so that they have a fair chance of being able to spawn a few times 1st. Right now, at least in the US they're allowed to be taken just before they reach reproduction age, I may be wrong, if so please correct me. I'd say that there should be a consideration for fair play so that they have a better chance of increasing their population as well as their survival as a spiecies.
So I'd be for a change in the regs.

Is this same sense of fair play being allowed by the hunters as well as by law in the case of the harp seal? Inquiring minds would like to know.

The deer hunt is an individual pursuit, it's also not a commerical pursuit & is done generally by & for the benifit of the individual hunter. They take only a few per season & those that they take are regulated by age & sex.

Now when you compare this to the moose or elk hunt, you are also not comparing apples to apples. Lets agree to drop the deer thing.

Before WWI, the seal industry went into decline, it was no longer profitable to hunt by the methods in use at the time, What's changed since then?

I'm still not seeing the need for the mass hunting of the harp seal. Am I just not getting it or is there just not enough going for the hunters justification to hunt out the young pups for the bit of fur & meat.

Is the meat of the adult harp seal any better or worst that the meat from a pup?
I understand that the fur of the young whitecoat is the most disirable.

Barry

17 Apr 08 - 11:25 PM (#2318931)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Deer do not eat cod?

So you think it's bad to kill seals because they eat cod? I don't understand.

Do deer hunters gather in large groups then herd deer them then kill them in large numbers?

Deer are killed in much larger numbers than the seals are. Millions as opposed to hundreds of thousands. Why does it matter how the hunters group themselves in order to do the killing? And why would it matter whether or not the deer hunters herded the deer? A lot of deer hunters put out salt licks so that the deer will become accustomed to being in the spot where the hunter wants to shoot them. Still other deer hunters have machines that broadcast corn in the spot where the hunters want to kill their deer at certain times every day so that they not only will know where the deer are for shooting, but even what time of day the deer will be there for them to kill. Now really, Barry. You tell me in what way this is more sporting than the way the seals are hunted and killed.

Do deer hunters kill off the young & not the adults?

Deer hunters do the unnatural thing by killing off the biggest and healthiest adults. If you pay attention to nature it's the young and the sick and infirm that are killed by natural predators, not the healthiest and biggest adults. Killing the best adult specimens, as the deer hunters do, is actually detrimental to the overall health of the deer population. So in that way, it's actually worse than killing the young.

Are the methods in hunting the same & does one have a better sporting chance than the other?

See what I said about the salt licks and corn feeders.

17 Apr 08 - 11:28 PM (#2318933)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

Barry,

It is understandable that you have not read through the whole thread. What was said about the deer hunt was within the context of a larger point.

In answer to EJ's original post. It is my contention that my family and my home province are NOT irrational barbarians because they hunt seals.

It is my contention that killing animals for meat and fur, or leather or whatever, is inherently cruel from the point of view of the animal, but one form of hunt or butchering, is not morally inferior or more irrational than any other. The animal is dead. If the person killing the animal is doing it in a humane way and if the species is not endangered, if it for food, clothing, income, medical research or any other reasonable use, it is no worse or better than the death of any other animal.

What is barbaric and irrational, in my opinion, is insulting people and trying to deprive them of income and food who are of miles away. But not protesting a similar thing in one's own back yard.

I am not saying that the seal hunt is better than deer hunting. I am saying it is no worse.

18 Apr 08 - 12:02 AM (#2318947)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

It is apples and oranges, but even so, the seal hunt is

Deer do not eat cod?<<

I've seen deer killed because they eat rose bushes and Moose killed because they eat cabbage.

>>Do deer hunters gather in large groups then herd deer them then kill them in large numbers?<<

Seal hunters don't do that, not the ones we are talking about anyway. You can't herd harp seals. Perhaps you are thinking about the Alaska hunt. Which is perfectly legal and not protested because the Coast Guard would kick Paul Watsons ass.

>>Do deer hunters kill off the young & not the adults?<<

No they pervert nature by killing off the best breeding stock during breeding season for the sake of trophies. Most states call it a cull but I is actually antithetical to responsible game management.

>>Are the methods in hunting the same & does one have a better sporting chance than the other?<<

They are not exactly the same. But on average, the seal has a much better chance than the deer.

For one thing they are protected by numbers, There are six million seals, only 278,000 will be taken this year. The odds against an individual seal are one in twenty.
The are protected by the environment, hundreds of thousands of square miles, ice flows, bad weather. I'd wager a lot more men have died hunting seals than deer, yet thousands of times more deer have been killed.
As far as the sport goes, have you ever tried to shot the bobbing head of a deer from a moving boat? Where the deer could dive and swim hundreds of yards underwater any time that he wants. Now imagine a head about half as large. The seal hunt can be very very sporting.

>>No, they also don't take the young & there are laws prohibiting the number one hunter can take per season & they make the taking of females into consideration too

The laws vary from state to state. Some states allow a deer a day every day of the year. But the seal hunt is certainly more regulated than any deer hunt. For instance, my Dad and everyone one else in the seal fishery has to report their catch daily so that the quota is not exceeded. He also had to take special training in methods to insure that the animal is dispatched as quickly and humanely as possible. His is not Bubba in a deer blind drinking beer who is in no shape to track a deer if he wings one.

I am not saying that Bubba is common. But I don't see Paul Watson in the woods of the US trying to take his picture.

That is the main difference between hunting seal and deer. White ice and open spaces, leading to publicity. Leading to money, and a nice home and ecogroupies for lying assholes for Paul Watson.

18 Apr 08 - 08:05 AM (#2319168)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: M.Ted

Both of you are getting worse with age, Jack--I have no issue here, save civility, and both you and the blushing bride have serious boundary issues. And worse, you aren't much fun.

18 Apr 08 - 10:39 AM (#2319282)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: meself

Oh dear.

18 Apr 08 - 10:44 AM (#2319290)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: pdq

Them Seal Whackers

Look at them seal whackers
Ain't they fun
Slippin' on ice
And packn' them guns

Packin' them long guns
Packin' them short
Whackin' them seals
Is a real fine sport

Whackin' them females
Whackin' them pups
Whackin' anything
What done show'd up

Don't need no per-mit
Ain't this a racket
Pick you a seal
Walk up and whack it!

             ~ me

18 Apr 08 - 10:52 AM (#2319299)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: meself

Another helpful contribution ...

18 Apr 08 - 11:13 AM (#2319313)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

I didn't realize there was a problem between you and me, M Ted. That's too bad, but I'm not going to censor my opinions because you might dislike me if I don't. I find it rather perverse of you that you accuse me of having boundary issues because I'm am telling people to correct the problems in their own back yard before they go pointing fingers at other peoples' back yards.

Attacking my personality is just another (in my opinion, rather childish) way of trying to win an argument with personal attacks in the absence of any kind of real argument.

And I'm not getting worse with age. I've always been this way.

18 Apr 08 - 12:12 PM (#2319370)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: CarolC

Also, M Ted, I would like to point out that I have made no personal attacks on you in this thread (nor any other thread, as far as I can remember), while you have made two on me here in this thread. It seems to me that you're also not on very firm ground when you point fingers at others about not being civil or very much fun.

18 Apr 08 - 12:22 PM (#2319380)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: Peace

The evolution of a thread . . . .

18 Apr 08 - 02:31 PM (#2319508)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: gnu

Well, it's Friday afternoon. Been a long, hard week in many ways. Just came from the beer store after I was at the bank after I was at the lawyer's to pick up the cheque for the hunting/fishing camp I sold. Thought I'd sip an ale and let the stress ebb away, so I came in here to see if there were any revalations.

BTW, Don't hunt anymore. Last time I fired my old dirty thirty at a deer it wasn't at the deer. First shot was over it, then in front of it to turn it back to the woods, then into the trees behind it to keep it moving. Otherwise, the inexperienced hunter on stand down the road might a shot the little six-pointer. Only reason I had the gun with me was in case a bears.

Anyway, I read >>Do deer hunters gather in large groups then herd deer them then kill them in large numbers?<< Yeah. And they use hounds to do it, as well.

M.Ted. Ya know, if ya keep shovellin shit, yer gonna dig a hole so deep, ya mightn't never git out.

Peace... that thar caribou stew was mostly fat n gristle.

I was eatin caribou, moose, deer NB), ruffed grouse (NB), speckled trout, seal flipper pie... and a wee bit of Lamb's Navy one night in the Codroy Valley north a Channel Port-aux-Basques (look it up ye ferriners). Me buddy's neighbours were over and one young lass of the tender age of 96 never said peep until the pie. She simply smiled, listened, nodded, and was just so sweet. Talk turned to the cod... the Portugese and Spaniards and Russians... the Feds and their biologists and their quotas... the rise in water temp... the scallop draggers.... the moratorium... Mary cleared her throat and there was silence. She raised her head and glanced about the tale, ackowledging each, as if to say, "Thank you for the floor.", and said, "It's the fookin seals."

After the laughter subsided, talk turned to other things, and Mary never said peep until the goodbyes... at 3AM. It was the best laugh of the night and I shall never forget it.

18 Apr 08 - 06:36 PM (#2319653)
Subject: RE: BS: Canada Escalates Seal Slaughter Defense
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor

>>From: M.Ted
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 08:05 AM

Both of you are getting worse with age, Jack--I have no issue here, save civility, and both you and the blushing bride have serious boundary issues. And worse, you aren't much fun.<<

So you are protesting incivility by being condescending and sarcastic.

OK, fine.

At least now we no where you stand.

BTW, I try you have fun, but for me, having my whole family and culture slagged every twelve months isn't much fun for me. Its tough to be light hearted about that.