Seal Hunt

[rkmsuf]

Grab a club! Who's with me?

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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...da_seal_hunt_2

Thousands to Be Part of Canada Seal Hunt

Tue Mar 29, 3:14 PM ET World - AP Canada


By BETH DUFF-BROWN, Associated Press Writer

TORONTO - Thousands of sealers armed with clubs, rifles and spears headed for the ice floes off eastern Canada on Tuesday for the world's largest seal hunt, one expected to bring poor coastal communities millions of dollars but condemned by animal rights activists as barbaric.



The contentious harp seal hunt, the target of protests since the 1960s, begins about two weeks after the seal pups are born and their fur changes from white to gray. Animal rights activists say the pups are clubbed to death and often skinned alive, but sealers and government officials who monitor the hunt insist the pups die instantly, under strict guidelines.


"It's just horrific out there. There is blood all across the ice and seal carcasses as far as the eye can see," Rebecca Aldworth of The Humane Society of the United States told The Associated Press from the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Tuesday.


"We've seen seals that were moving around and breathing, that have been left in these piles, some left conscious and crawling," said Aldworth, a native Newfoundlander who has observed the seal hunt for the past six years.


Regulations require that hunters ensure their prey is dead before moving on. Aldworth said she had listened to some seals crying, likely for their mothers, which whelp on the ice floes every spring.


Aldworth is filming the hunt and posting her findings on the Web.


Many countries, including the United States, ban imports of seal products.


But the Canadian government says the hunt brings badly needed income to its coastal communities, which earned about $16.5 million last year, primarily from pelt sales to Norway, Denmark and China.


Aboriginal and Inuit subsistence and commercial hunters begin the kill Nov. 15 in Canada's vast expanse of frozen northern waters, which reach from the Yukon Territories near Alaska through the Arctic Ocean and down into the North Atlantic off the Labrador coast.


The spring leg of the commercial hunt starts in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and moves to the Front, an arc of the Atlantic Ocean sweeping out about 30-40 miles from Newfoundland. Hunters were expected to kill more than 300,000 seals by May 15, when the federal, three-year plan ends, allowing sealers to harvest a total of 975,000 seals since 2003.


Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans says the country's seal population is "healthy and abundant," and notes that there are an estimated 5 million harp seals, nearly the highest level ever recorded and almost triple what it was in the 1970s.


Ed Frenette of the P.E.I. Fishermen's Association told Canadian Broadcasting Corp. television that harp seal pelts were at an all-time high of $57, and opponents of the hunt ought to target buyers, not the fishermen who desperately need the income from the pelts.


Aldworth said there were some 70 fishing boats in the area where she was filming, about 20 miles south of the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, yet no government officials on the ground to check whether the seals were being properly killed.


Michel Therien, a spokesman for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, countered this. He said there were two large Coast Guard vessels in the region and one fisheries officer for every seven or eight commercial vessels.


"I presume they can't be in all the places, all the times, but we encourage the public to report any illegal activities, for sure," Therien said by telephone from Charlottetown.


He said the fishermen need to supplement their income, since many fishing families only earn about $9,800 a year from their catches of snow crabs, lobster or cod.


"They have to live on whatever they're capable of catching," Therien said. "The seal fisheries is part of their livelihood."





A report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, meanwhile, says the harvest of up to 975,000 seals will damage the marine mammal population.

"Any pretense of a scientifically based ... hunt has been abandoned and Canada's commercial seal hunt has become — quite simply — a cull, designed more to achieve short-term political objectives than those of a biologically sustainable hunt," the report said.

Fishermen participating in the hunt, however, blame seals and their voracious appetites for the devastation of Canada's fish stocks, in particular cod, and argue a cull is necessary.

The anti-sealing movement scored major victories in the 1970s and 1980s, convincing the United States and much of Europe to ban the import of pelts from white coat and young harp and hooded seals. The Canadian government in 1997 banned the killing of both in their first days, only allowing the pups to be hunted after they had shed their white coats.

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[Flasch186]

this is an awful way to kill animals too....lets see who stands up for this.

[Pyser]

id hunt a seal.

but only the one who are buster's hand.

"Lucille!"
"I'm not worried about her anymore."
"No, Lucille (loose seal)!"

and now he's alright

Genius.

[Drake]

http://www.cartoonstock.com/director...eals_gifts.asp

[SlapBone]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

this is an awful way to kill animals too....lets see who stands up for this.

Yea, unless we are killing babies or cripple people there is no discernable progress.

[Ksyrup]

Club 'em, whack 'em, and leave 'em bleeding.

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by SlapBone

Yea, unless we are killing babies or cripple people there is no discernable progress.

I want to see if the lines are drawn the same...because I do not line up there.

[Peregrine]

Lisa Simpson: Mr. Blackheart?

Blackheart: Yes, my pretty?

Lisa: Are you an ivory dealer?

Blackheart: Well, little girl, I've had lots of jobs in my day: whale-hunter, seal-clubber, president of the Fox network, and, like most people, yeah, I've dealt a little ivory.

[sovereignstar]

[Drake]

That, my friends, is the face of evil.

[Lathum]

I don't see the big deal. How is it any less barberic then bow hunting or setting a bear trap? Just because they are "cute" people feel bad for them.

[rkmsuf]

Bring it on!

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

I'd hit it.

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I don't see the big deal. How is it any less barberic then bow hunting or setting a bear trap? Just because they are "cute" people feel bad for them.

Exactly. Like Denis Leary said, "We only wanna save the cute animals." (if you haven't heard "No Cure For Cancer" you're missing out)

The process for rendering chicken and beef in this country is just as "barbaric."

My only objection is the wastefulness of the seal harvest. Surely the remaining parts of the seals (aside from the pelts) can be used for something. Dog food... whatever. But I do object to them just being left around to rot.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

I'd hit it.

AHAHA. Franklin? Where are you- this should have been your line!

SI

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

AHAHA. Franklin? Where are you- this should have been your line!

SI

Sorry... QuikSand got to this thread before I did.

[Desnudo]

What about lobsters? I would think getting boiled alive is a lot more barbaric than getting whacked with a club.

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

What about lobsters? I would think getting boiled alive is a lot more barbaric than getting whacked with a club.

Lobsters aren't cute like seals. And they're probably a lot more tasty.

[Desnudo]

I don't know, have you ever had seal jerky before?

[Flasch186]

i mean its not like we dont have enough ammo...like in Stalingrad WWII.

[Airhog]

You know if I needed every dollar to survive, I would wack a bunch of seals too...

[Pyser]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

What about lobsters? I would think getting boiled alive is a lot more barbaric than getting whacked with a club.

a recent study found lobsters dont feel pain like that. im sure you can find it online somewhere, if you dug around.

which i think is wrong, because you can hear them scream. but thats what the study said.

[Easy Mac]

Matt Damon has an alternative


Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at the N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people that I never met and that I never had no problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number was called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. They're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's walking to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks 'cause the schrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorroids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure, fuck it, while I'm at it, why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

[Karim]

Maybe it's the protestors' propoganda but almost every year we get reports of inhumane treatment with the graphic pictures showing some being skinned alive, stomachs open while still breathing or needing multiple whacks as they try and escape.

I'm not going to be a hypocrite as I eat beef, pork and chicken but my stomach turns in disgust when I see those reports.

And I agree with the waste comment. If it was Inuit hunting, I'd suspect every last part of the seal would be used in some fashion. They tend to respect their own back yard more than these folks.

[CraigSca]

Damn Canadians and their love of money. Why is everything about money these days?!

[Ksyrup]

It's Canada's version of Whacking Day!

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

It's Canada's version of Whacking Day!

SI

[Desnudo]

I love the sexy slither of a lady snake.

[mhass]

Where's HA?