Are Seal Pups Worth Risking Human Life?
The annual baby seal hunt is on and the protesters are out in force. I am personally ambivalent about the seal hunt. On one hand helpless animals are bludgeoned to death for their fur. On the other, the hunt supports families who would not otherwise be able to survive economically in a part of Canada that is very poor and which is losing its fishing industry due to over harvesting. But I do know that baby seals are not worth endangering human lives, which was apparently done when the Sea Shepherd Society maneuvered in front of a Coast Guard cutter so as to cause a collision. From the statement by the Canadian Minister of Fisheries:
On March 30, 2008, while attempting to provoke a confrontation, the Farley Mowat maneuvered itself in front of the Coast Guard vessel Des Groseilliers to cause a collision between the two vessels. The CCG icebreaker was taking part in seal hunt enforcement operations at the time.
This organization is known to use this tactic to generate photo opportunities, which generate publicity and bolster their fundraising efforts - an action I find despicable...
Members of the Sea Sheppard Society, who tried to attract media attention by manoeuvring their boat to cause a collision with a Coast Guard vessel, should reconsider their shameful tactics which jeopardize the safety and security of people involved in the annual seal hunt. If the crew of the Farley Mowat valued life as much as they say they do, they would immediately remove themselves from the area, and not attack Coast Guard vessels while they protect our sealers.
Here is the news story about the incident, with Sea Shepherd activists claiming an intentional ramming. I don't believe them for a second. They are very radical, whose leader has accused humanity of being a virus on the planet, with the "cure" against us requiring a "radical and invasive approach." Moreover, we are talking about a Canadian Coast Guard ship here.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 6:08 AM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
If the bludgeoning is a relatively quick and humane way to die, then I don't have a big problem with it. I don't think it's wrong to kill animals in itself. I just ate pork last night from a pig that somebody killed! It may be that the seals suffer no more than many animals raised for food.
On the other hand, since people don't need the fur coats in themselves to survive, the industry does not produce a product that is itself important to human welfare. Hence I could wish that the sealing industry would somehow slowly disappear as by an invisible hand, with the families who get their livelihoods from it gradually moving to other professions.
There is nothing quick or efficient or painless with having your head bashed in. Most babies are shot, left writing in agony until the killer gets their boat docked and gets to them. Even then, many are taken to the skinning boat still alive, and are skinned alive.
The solution to this horrendous and massive slaughter is for the Canadian government to use the same money they use to support the slaughter and simply give it to the men who need it to support their families. It's more honest, it's the moral thing to do, rather than risk lives on the ice and remember, the Coast Guard already killed 4 men with the towing fiasco.
Babies don't need to die agonal deaths to support people. Please read the article below.
Sea Shepherd Crew Defy Canada’s Ban on Documenting the Slaughter
The Sea Shepherd crew onboard the Farley Mowat documented scenes of excessive brutality this morning as they moved through the ice some 35 miles north of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Sea Shepherd crew observed seals being shot and wounded and thrashing about in agony on the surface of the ocean.
The priorities of the Canadian Coast Guard seem to be in harassing the crew of the Farley Mowat and trying to prevent documentation of the inhumane slaughter of seals.
Two coast guard vessels shadowed the Farley Mowat all morning. The Coast Guard vessel CCGS Des Groseilliers ordered the Farley Mowat to leave Canadian waters and to not approach any sealing operation stating that a permit is required from the Canadian government to observe the seals being slaughtered.
The Farley Mowat responded by saying; “permits. We don’t need no stinkin’ permits.”
The Canadian government has no authority over a foreign registered ship traveling outside the Canadian twelve mile limit. The Farley Mowat is a Dutch ship with a Dutch Captain and a crew from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Sweden, France, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada and South Africa. The crew of the Farley Mowat believe the Canadian Coast Guard should be concentrating on search and rescue operations instead of censoring observation of the slaughter of seals.
Canadian Coast Guard incompetence has already led to the death of four sealers. Yesterday four men from the Magdalene Islands died when their 12 meter aluminum hulled boat the L’Acadien II capsized while being towed through heavy ice by the Coast Guard icebreaker Sir William Alexander. Bruno-Pierre Bourque one of the two survivors of the L'Acadien II, blamed the tragedy on excessive speed and lack of attention by the Coast Guard.
Canadian Coast Guard spokesperson Mike Voigt defended the Coast Guard saying there are no regulations for towing in the ice and the Coast Guard has little experience in towing vessels through the ice.
“This is incredible,” said Captain Paul Watson, himself a former member of the Canadian Coast Guard. “The government of Canada allows hundreds of small non-ice class vessels to navigate in the most hostile waters on earth in heavy ice and they then say they have no contingency plans to deal with rescuing these same vessels. Perhaps if they spent less time making plans to prevent the documentation of the seal slaughter and more time being concerned about protecting human lives, these men would not have died.”
To the owner of this page. Please get your facts correct before you open mouth and insert foot. The ramming of the Farley Mowat by the Canadian Coast Guard is on film. Do not defame anyone before you know what you're talking about.
Sea Shepherd Responds to DFO Spin Doctors
Stand By To Graze!
Back in 1993 when the Sea Shepherd ship Cleveland Amory came within a metre of the Cuban drag trawler Rio Los Casa while opposing over-fishing, the Canadian Coast Guard accused Sea Shepherd of ramming the Cuban vessel. Captain Paul Watson was charged and later acquitted for that action but during the trial the Coast Guard said that such a close maneuver was never acceptable under any circumstances.
On Sunday the Canadian Coast Guard vessel Des Groseilliers twice struck the Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat, buckling plates in the hull above the water line. Phil Jenkins of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has called the charge absolutely false and said that the icebreaker only "grazed" the Farley Mowat.
The Coast Guard have not said anything and it is a mystery as to how the DFO can be commenting on something they were not involved in but when is a ramming not a ramming? According to DFO, it is not a ramming if the ships "graze." So according to the DFO the ships "grazed" and not only was the graze a hard one but they "grazed" the Farley Mowat twice.
"The fact remains that the Canadian Coast Guard acted in a grossly reckless manner," said Captain Paul Watson. "The Coast Guard should be concentrating on search and rescue operations instead of going around "grazing" vessels trying to document the inhumanity of the most savage slaughter of marine mammals on the planet."
Pictures of the Des Groseilliers ramming the Farley Mowat have been posted on the Seals 2008 photos page.
The ramming was also videotaped and the video will be made available as soon as it can be transported from the ship to the shore.
The DFO may spin the story anyway they want but the images don't lie and the video and the photographs very clearly show the Coast Guard vessel striking the Farley Mowat in a reckless and unprofessional manner.
"I don't think there is any question that the Coast Guard are incompetent," said Captain Watson. "When I was with the Canadian Coast Guard we never took a vessel under tow in such conditions and allowed the crew to remain onboard and we always posted a watch to keep the vessel under observation at all times. Here we have the Coast Guard questioning the safety standards on my ice class steel hulled vessel that I've navigated through Antarctic pack ice for years and they are indifferent to the safety of sealers on fragile wooden and aluminum hulled vessels in heavy ice. The Coast Guard needs to get their priorities sorted out and they need to stop be
Why should anyone feel sorry for these families who "live in a poor area" of Canada? Get a clue and move to where the jobs are! The products your industry produces from causing animals to suffer are not essential by any stretch of the imagination. Find something else to do.
In some ways this reminds me of the idiots who continue to live in depressed areas of Appalachia and the like who start dealing or doing drugs because there is allegedly no honest work. In others it's like the watermen who are progressively depleting the Chesapeake Bay and other natural fisheries of fish and shellfish, but then complain if, to try to save the fisheries, the government tries to restrict harvests. When these creatures are all gone, the watermen will demand welfare handouts because they can no longer make a living in a field they chose of their own free will.
All this also reminds me of the late comedian Sam Kinison's hilarious routine about not sending aid to hunger relief organizations to feed the starving who choose to live in areas where food production is impossible. "Send them luggage, folks!... You know, we just drove 700 miles with your food, and it occurred to us that maybe there wouldn't be world hunger if you people would live where the food is! You live in a blanking desert!" :D
K-man: It's all so easy for those with such great certitude, to leave your home, your families, your way of life. But I agree with you about Kinison being utterly hilarious.
I haven't got a problem with killing seals, but I have a moral digust of killing any baby animal for any purpose other than putting a terminally ill animal to sleep. If God thinks it's cruel to boil a calf in its mother's milk, I can get behind that. As moral creatures and exceptional beings, we have a responsibility to attend to the animals, use them properly, and not abuse them. Why are *baby* seals being targeted instead of older, adult seals? That's the part that bothers me. Seals should be harvested in a humane fashion, not be killed while still babies. Granted, I don't think the humans there should be harmed for doing so, but I think we haven't sat down and discussed all the options open yet.
Whoever carries out this inhumane act has obviously no family of his own and has no life as well. If he had a baby of his own, he would realise the love that a parent has for his/her kids and not harm others kids so that some fool in a rich country can cover themselves in fur. Rather than blaming those people who kill the seals, I would bash up the people who buy that fur. Till the time there is a market for fools, innocents will suffer.
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