Canada seal hunt today.....

Seals are hard to find here in Texas.

How is seal meat? Can you cook it over charcoal?

 

Oh Shiloh, you're asking for it huh?

 

I am already sealed. Don't need to go hunting for one.

 

Seal meat was a staple at one time in both Newfoundland and Labrador and all that coastal area. To-day, it is mainly the pelts that provide vital income for the native peoples.

Further, seals consume a tremendous number of the fish vital to the fishing industry, which again provides a living for many people, just as do the factories and plants on the mainland.

As to clubbing the seals. The ocean ice is flat, and just imagine how many humans would die if guns were used. Besides, the gun shots would have an effect on the ice floor and many would likely drown.

The do-gooders like to show the blood pools on the ice, but few of them show concern for all the blood and guts on the floor of an abattoir that supplies their steaks, hamburgers and other so-called domestic foods. Animals that were once killed by a blunt force to the head and throats cut.

Then, most of these protestors are veggies. The fact of the abattoirs (slaughterhouses) remains, animals are brutally slaughtered.

At least these people are not in another country shooting people.

Cheers,

Jim

 

LINK

 

HSUS Statement Following Start of 2006 Canadian Seal Hunt

March 25, 2006

CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. - The Humane Society of the United States has issued the following statement from Rebecca Aldworth, director of Canadian Wildlife Issues:

"Starting at dawn today, boats carrying hundreds of seal hunters converged in the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Over the past few days, the Protect Seals team has searched the entire Gulf for the harp seal nursery, but failed to find it. The few seal pups we've seen cling to the scattered, tiny pans of ice that remain across the ocean. Scientists fear many of the harp seals born this year would have drowned as the ice cover melted from under them before they were old enough to swim proficiently.

Now, the few surviving baby seals we've watched for the last several days are being killed as Canada's gruesome seal hunt begins again. Over the next few weeks, sealers will attempt to locate, club and shoot to death thousands more baby seals - totaling well over 300,000 if they get their way.

The hunt is inhumane and cruel. Veterinary studies have shown that humane killing guidelines are not enforced and in many cases seals are skinned while conscious. Each year, parliamentarians, journalists and animal welfare observers report incredible cruelty at the hunt, including dragging conscious seals across the ice with boathooks, shooting seals and leaving them to suffer in agony and skinning seals alive.

Today's killing levels meet and even exceed those of the 1950's and 60's, when close to two-thirds of the harp seal population was wiped out. Harp seals now face a double threat to their survival - the impacts of climate change and historic high levels of commercial hunting.

Together with a powerful alliance of like-minded organizations, The HSUS is calling for a boycott of all Canadian seafood. Almost three-quarters of Canadian seafood is exported to the United States each year, contributing nearly $3 billion for the Canadian economy annually. This dwarfs the few million dollars brought in by the seal hunt each year. Already more than 400 seafood wholesalers, restaurants and grocery chains - and more than 220,000 individuals - have pledged to eliminate or reduce their sales of Canadian seafood until the seal hunt is stopped for good. We believe the Canadian fishing industry will soon see that the price of an international seafood boycott is not worth continuing this cruel commercial seal hunt."

- LINK

 

The United States should be as concerned about the people they are killing in foreign countries, and the people being killed in their own country before they shove their mouths into other sovereign countries.

Cheers,

Jim

 

If you know of any government-sanctioned activity, in this or other countries, which calls for the clubbing and skinning-alive of any person, please share it with us.

I would be happy to condemn that along with this practice.

 

We can't make the Canadians stop this barbaric practice.

But neither can you make Americans buy Canadian seafood from that area.

Eventually, we may find out which Canadians value more - continuing this barbaric practice or selling their seafood to Americans.

 

Canadians value Canada and we are getting tired of Americans trying to rule every corner of this earth, except their own country. Learn to keep your mouths shut and stop interfereing in sovereign countries before you clean up your own act.

You yelled at us when we had one mad cow case and yet covered up, who knows how many cases, in the USA. We didn't impose imbargos on the USA, but you sure delighted in bankrupting 1000's of farmers in Canada with your self-righteous finger-pointing. We are getting tired of it. Wake up and realize why Americans are hated around the world.

Clean up your own act. Stop sending the pollution across the border from the Ohio area into Ontario daily. Clean up your own streets, before you send the brooms to our streets. Control your own children steeped in drugs before you correct our children. In plain English, start to mind your own business. You haven't a clue what you are ranting about with regards to the seal hunt, and neither does your Humane Society.

In short, don't be so miopic and start looking around home. When you get that right, we might start listening.

Cheers,

Jim

You just stay at home and mind your own business and we will worry about how we market our produce,,,,but remember, it does work both ways.

 

I think that the U.S. government overreacted in that mad cow case.

 

Actually HSUS does know what it is talking about on this issue. That you refuse to recognize the truth doesn't change it, Jim.

 

"This year Italy and Mexico passed legislation to ban the importation of seal products. Belgium, UK and the Netherlands are all considering legislation to ban seal products. The U.S. also prohibits the importation of seal products."

- LINK

I guess that you have a problem with Italy, Mexico, Begium, the UK, and the Netherlands, also, Jim. Maybe you will rant about these countries as well.

 

Global warming is the real deal. The debate is over on that one. Alot of polar bears will perish
and other animals in the immediate region ..we should be all working together to preserve our wildlife and what is left of it...we are the cause of this global shift because of the burning of billions of tons of fossil fuels.
I know we had this debate last year about the seal hunt and KenH took quite a bashing but you would think the Canadian government would see
to intervene to help people economically instead allowing the bashing of seal pups heads in ...the hunter and the hunted may very well be both in danger with thinning ice and melting ice
in the not so distant future.

Jim what you say is true it seems as if the bush culture has been a bull in a china closet instead of using wisdom...he has hurt our nation
for years to come and will leave the Iraq war to another President to use his or her wisdom to clean up his mess.(bushs track record is messes)

But one thing is for sure we will have to work together when it comes to global warming and solving the great challenge of preserving things that give us joy like our wildlife and bueatiful
landscapes.

The Weather has no borders.

from the BBC

'Shut the hunt'

The head of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw), Fred O'Regan, said in a statement that the cull was a "cruel hunt for products that nobody needs".

"Canada is better than this. It's time for the new Canadian government to shut down the seal hunt," he said.



Ifaw has asked the Canadian government to cancel this year's hunt due to poor ice conditions, which it says means many pups will drown anyway.

Sir Paul and Heather McCartney, who visited the region earlier this month to protest against the cull, made a last-minute video appeal.

"We are absolutely committed to making sure this is the last slaughter of baby seals in Canada anyone will ever have to witness," Sir Paul said.

They urged Canada to consider a "win-win" plan to end the hunt while compensating fishermen for lost revenue.

Celebrity campaigner Brigitte Bardot also asked the Canadian government to halt the cull earlier this week.

"Canada is a rich country. It doesn't need to sell skin, oil, fat and powdered seal penises to make aphrodisiacs for countries in Asia... You cannot continue a genocide of animals like this," the 71-year-old actress said.

But Mr Harper, who refused a request to meet Bardot, dismissed the suggestion.

"We don't harvest the pups," he said, referring to a 1987 ban on the killing of newborn seals with white coats pictured in many anti-hunt posters.

"Unfortunately, we're to some degree the victim of a bit of an international propaganda campaign... We believe the country is acting responsibly and we'll make sure all rules are enforced."

 

"Canada is a rich country. It doesn't need to sell skin, oil, fat and powdered seal penises to make aphrodisiacs for countries in Asia... You cannot continue a genocide of animals like this," the 71-year-old actress said."

For as long as this "genocide" has been going on one would think all the seals would be long gone by now. The fact that they keep having the hunt every year tells me it isn't genocide. I agree with Jim, if it happens in Canada it's up to Canadians to decide on. We should pay more attention to cleaning up our own messes and we don't need a bunch of foreigners and internationalists from the UN telling Americans how to run our country or do business either.

That's what sovereignty is all about, telling other countries and non elected global bureaucracies to butt out of our business and mind their own.

 

Part of the uproar is the simple fact that baby seals look like that. They are fat and oh-so-cute.

Gallagher once had a joke where he said something like, "We can drop live lobsters into boiling water, but not puppies"

No, humans do not need animals (only) for their pelts anymore. But what of the aforementioned predator/prey problem? If a rancher can shoot coyotes and foxes to protect his livelihood, why can't fishermen do the same thing?