More on Sealing In Canada

[Trevor]

Repercussions from the The Lord, The Lady and Danny Boys Seal Debate [/size]



Commentary by Captain Paul Watson



In the wake of Sir Paul McCartney and Lady Heather Mills McCartney?s visit to the seals, the campaign to end the cruel and obscene slaughter of seals has slipped into high gear.

The entire world is now aware of the tragic mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seal pups each year.

Politicians in Ottawa and in Newfoundland have gone into the circle the wagons mode and are sniping defensively at anyone who dares to criticize the slaughter.

Despite the fact that 60 million people saw Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams humiliate himself with his rambling fabrications defending the seal hunt, his fellow Newfoundland politicians have actually compared his so called ?oratory skills? to Winston Churchill. Talk about delusions of grandeur.

Can you see this speech going down in the annals of history?

?B?yes, we will fight these seal defenders on the ocean. We will fight them on land, we will fight them in the air. We will beat them up, jail them, fine them, and we will ridicule these seal lovers. We will do whatever it takes to defend the killing of seals. We will continue to bash in their little heads, skin them alive and give ?em the boot. We were born to kill seals because we are Newfies and by God our very identity depends on being cruel seal killing bastards. Yes sir b?ye If need be we will fight until the last seal pup but we will never surrender, hey b?yes.?

Well more like the anus of history.

Danny Williams embarrassed Newfoundlanders when he demonstrated that he could not tell the difference between a harp seal and a harbour seal. The seals you?ve seen swimming up river Danny are Harbour seals. Maybe your friends in the World Wildlife Fund could give you a book on identifying seals but they are mad at you also for misrepresenting them. The World Wildlife Fund has never said the seal hunt is humane.

Danny even got his anti-sealing groups confused. He said the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) supports the seal hunt which they don?t. He said that Greenpeace is opposing the seal hunt and they are not opposing it. He attacked PETA although they are not directly involved an accused them of being a terrorist organization.

He demonstrated that he knows very little about the groups opposing the slaughter of seals and he had the audacity to deny seals are killed with clubs as the viewers watch the sealers killing the seals with clubs. In other words, Danny wants us to believe him and not our own eyes.

But we will let Newfoundlanders enjoy themselves in their fantasies because we have learned long ago that the decision to end the seal hunt will not be made in Newfoundland. It will not be made in Ottawa.

No, the only thing that will end the slaughter is good old economic pressure. It all comes down to profit and loss.

Already the losses to the Canadian Seafood Industry have greatly exceeded the relatively small profits from the killing of seals. The boycott is gathering strength every day and the call to boycott Canadian seafood by Heather and Paul McCartney has accelerated the effectiveness of this boycott.

Not since Brigitte Bardot graced the ice with her presence has the movement to protect the harp and hood seals seen such support.

Outside of Canada, the sympathy lies solidly with the seals. Inside Canada the support is dropping. The majority of Canadians want the bloody seal hunt to end. Columnists from Peter Worthington to Barbara Yaffe have denounced it. The National Post has taken a strong anti-sealing stand.

According to respected journalist Peter Worthington the seal hunt causes more damage to Canada?s reputation than any other single event.

A letter from Laurel Harris published in the Toronto Star said:

Newfoundland Premier Danny WIlliams's embarassing performance Friday night on Larry King Live did nothing to advance the cause for Newfoundland's seal hunt. Paul and Heather McCartney are correct in stating that the hunt is very damaging to Canada's international reputation.

To stubbornly refuse to even consider alternatives available to the seal hunters to replace the relatively small amount of $15 million to $20 million in income is doing a disservice to both the province and the country.

His arguments were weak, he was generally a sorry and unconvincing representative for his side and he made Newfoundland (and Canada) look bad.

The seal hunt should be ended, sooner rather than later.


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Story Links:





Peter Worthington?s Editorial in the Toronto Sun

Humane Hunting Still Just Killing

Clubbing death of seal pup in front of its mother is brutal - - and wrong

Link: http://torontosun.com/News/Canada/20...76418-sun.html



Tom Hennessy had an excellent critical column on the seal hunt this week in the Long Beach California Press Telegram.

Link: http://www.presstelegram.com/tomhennessy/ci_3575497





Other editorials include the:

The Minnesota Daily Editorial

Story Link: http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2006/03/07/67494

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Story by Canadian Columnist Barbara Yaffe in the March 7th edition of the Vancouver Sun



We should be sealing the fate of an inhumane ritual

Barbara Yaffe, Vancouver Sun
Published: Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn quipped last week that Sir Paul
McCartney, if he thinks he can halt Canada's seal hunt, will be traveling a
long and winding road -- remember that Beatles song?

Hearn, a politician I've come to admire through years of interviewing, might
reconsider his smart-assed comment if he viewed some Internet footage on the
U.S. Humane Society's website. The video shows clearly why the hunt is
nothing but bad news and isn't worth perpetuating.



Seals that have been clubbed are shown writhing in their blood, waiting to
die. Their eyes are open. Every arduous movement of their bodies signals
mortal pain. These aren't involuntary post mortem twitches but sentient
mammals in agony, awaiting death's release.

This is the fundamental problem with the seal hunt. It's an exercise in
mayhem on ice floes.

It clearly isn't possible to station a fisheries officer on every ice pan to
ensure sealing regulations are respected.

Sealers don't execute quick kills and methodically collect the booty. They
often leave bodies behind, and when you're killing a moving herd on an
undulating chunk of ice in brutal weather, you cannot expect any hunter to
be systematic or particular about the way he practises his vocation.

As someone who reported in Newfoundland for years, I've in fact experienced
pack ice conditions in winter. I know whereof I speak.

Sure, let's have a seal hunt -- after all, we kill and butcher all manner of
animals; how hypocritical would it be to say we should kill chickens and
cows but not seals, because they're cuter. But in the name of all that is
right and decent, let's have that seal hunt only if we can do it humanely.

And we cannot. We prove that in spades year after bloody year. As a past
defender of the hunt, I've had to conclude that the hunt's conditions and
locations make quick, humane kills impossible.

McCartney may be another in a long lineup of know-it-all rich celebs who
spend a day at the front and pronounce from on high (in fact, I found his
analysis both respectful and thoughtful). But that doesn't, in and of
itself, make him wrong.

This issue goes to a principle. Do we as a society insist on harvesting
animals humanely? It's up to each individual to decide. But we must bear
witness before deciding, so I urge everyone to view the internet clips.

Two other points to consider once you've decided whether the hunt is humane:
(1) Seals are killed primarily for fur, not meat. (2) While the white-coated
seal pups aren't killed, they stop being pups and are open to kills after 12
days of life. Twelve days of life.

While this is our business, not McCartney's nor the world's, it's also our
welfare at stake in this fight.

Because the fuss over the hunt has escalated year by year, it has started
taking a toll on Canada's reputation globally and on its economy.

The annual landed value of seals is $16.5 million, providing small but
significant benefit to one per cent of Newfoundlanders. It's not known how
much Fisheries and Oceans spends regulating the hunt and cultivating
markets.

What is known is that Ottawa spends $78 million by way of a Canadian Tourism
Commission to rosy up our reputation for tourists. (Foreign tourists spent
$18 billion here in 2004.) Better to chop the commission's budget and hand
cash to the sealers.

Animal-rights groups are organizing a Canadian seafood boycott that's
escalating. They maintain the boycott -- launched in March of 2005 -- has
already cost Newfoundland $156 million in lost snow crab sales.

Some 400 restaurants and companies, mainly in the U.S., have signed on to
the boycott so far. The groups currently are putting pressure on Red
Lobster, with 670 restaurants, to stop buying Canada's seafood.

If the seal hunt were humane, Canadians should be telling these groups where
to go stuff it. But many who view the video footage will be disturbed.

At this point Canadians need to begin pondering whether we're acting out of
little more than bravado and defiance.

byaffe@png.canwest.com
C The Vancouver Sun 2006

[Pirates Armada]

put down club get new job. maybe the only people who should kill seals are the ones that need them, like eskimos or something, who knows if they even need them these days. how the heck does living off the land turn into living off the money anyhow? that's the problem right there. seal meat must be yummy somewhere.

[Paul Ward]

The last time I remember this was about 20 years ago - maybe more. There was an iconic picture of a seal pup looking up at a guy swinging a club up and about to bring it down.

I thought it had all finished shortly after then, seems like it crept back again when we weren't looking.

[Trevor]

Actually the sealing Bas$#@@s only take the fur and leave the body (skinless) behind for the mother seals to come and sniff around the carcass of their dead babies! The vidio footage is truly a stain on the human race!

[Pirates Armada]

that's repulsive.

that's repulsive.

Thats human! The perfect ending would be to leave the seal clubbers on the ice to live off the dead seals until they froze to death. Oops! Shouldn't have thoughts like those or I feel I'm becoming like them all sick and twisted and full of hatred and bloodlust! Ok lets be 'humane' and just shoot them in the head! (the clubbers not the seals!)

[Pirates Armada]

Canada's number 1 dirt bag:

http://images.search.yahoo.com/searc...hearn&sz =all