Shock pictures: Is this what the Canadian government means by 'humane' slaughter?
Shock pictures: Is this what the Canadian government means by 'humane' slaughter?
The baby seal looks into the eyes of her executioner. Barely a flicker of emotion shows on the fisherman's face as he smashes a steel-tipped club into her mouth. She lies whimpering on the ice, blood pouring from her jaw and nose. picked by doggylives 6 months ago
tags seal clubbing canada cull slaughter photos
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25
 tundramo...
6 months ago
« MissLesh : I'm normally more of a reader than a participator around here, but this post and the comments really got to me.
With a comment as intelligent and well-researched as this, it's a shame you don't participate here more.

I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage you to do so!

I agree with you 100% on this, by the way. Nothing frustrates me more than animal rights activists who have never really visited the wilderness. Having worked in and around the Arctic for a decade, I see the seal hunt as a good thing (though I feel the opposite about some of the narwhal hunts).
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27
 TraumaMa...
6 months ago
« MissLesh:I'm normally more of a reader than a participator around here, but this post and the comments really got to me.

There's been a lot of uproar lately in Canada over the annual seal hunt and the seizing of the the Sea Shepherd Society's ship "Farley Mowat." The anti-seal hunt group decried it as an "act of war"

This is something I see every year, and is one social issue that infuriates me. Every day I drive to work past a billboard that has a picture of a little white fluffy seal that says "Save Me!"

I have a background in being a coastal naturalist. I have read both sides arguments. I support the seal hunt. Which may seem a little surprising since I am also a huge advocate for animals and can't bare to see them being needlessly abused. But it makes me sick to see the conservationist groups play on the emotions of people with no regard for facts.

Are seals cute? Undeniably.

But they are also the rats of the Ocean.


"By the mid-1980s, the environmental movement had abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism. I became aware of the emerging concept of sustainable development: balancing environmental, social and economic priorities. Converted to the idea that win-win solutions could be found by bringing all interests together, I made the move from confrontation to consensus."
Patrick Moore, founding member of Greenpeace


A study of the 2001 Canadian seal hunt conducted by five independent veterinarians, commissioned by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The 2001 report contained a number of recommendations on how sealing could be conducted more humanely. They did not, however, recommend the disuse of the controversial hakapik. The hakapick is heavy wooden club with a hammer head and metal hook on the end. The hakapik is used because of its efficiency, the animal can be killed quickly without damage to its pelt.

It is arguable that clubbing is more humane than shooting them, because guns are not 100% accurate and there is very high potential that the seal will will not die instantly, but only be wounded and later drown.

The population of Harp Seals in Canadian waters is well over 5 million animals and over the last number of decades has more than doubled.

The Canadian Harp Seal population is not now, nor ever has been, listed on any reputable international list of either endangered or threatened species. It is one of the most abundant marine mammal populations in the world’s oceans. Conservation is not an issue.
Just because it is not endangered, doesn't mean it needs to be culled yearly.

Rats of the Ocean? Where did you come up with that?

Edited to add, *IF* the hunt were to continue, I would oppose them banning the clubbing. Too often, seals are shot poorly, at long distances and there isn't a proper way to dispatch them quickly when they can get to the seal to finish them off.

Far too often, seals are shot at long distances, and poorly shot, to suffer and wait until the boat can get to them.

I would rather they be clubbed. Less appealing, but more humane.
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27
 TraumaMa...
6 months ago
« tundramonkey : With a comment as intelligent and well-researched as this, it's a shame you don't participate here more.

I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage you to do so!

I agree with you 100% on this, by the way. Nothing frustrates me more than animal rights activists who have never really visited the wilderness. Having worked in and around the Arctic for a decade, I see the seal hunt as a good thing (though I feel the opposite about some of the narwhal hunts).
What is different about the Narwhal hunts? I didn't actually know they hunted them at all, to be honest.
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25
 tundramo...
6 months ago
« TraumaMamma : What is different about the Narwhal hunts? I didn't actually know they hunted them at all, to be honest.
Last time, I saw 80 bloody carcasses strewn across the ice in one community so the tusk could be cut off and sold. An Elder (from another community) who was in my helicopter that day expressed his frustration at the needless waste of activities such as that. Apparently, the tusks can be sold for a ridiculous sum, especially if they're carved up.

This is in contrast to the last time I saw a whale hunt, at which point everyone came down to cut it up and I ate raw whale blubber, or a seal hunt, in which a community will participate and celebrate and I ate raw seal eyes. The Inuit believe the seal is the mother of the earth, and while they are killed every year they're still respected.

I wish that every person could actually see these things taking place instead of being armchair critics from across the planet.

It's hard to describe these things, even with pictures.
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25
 tundramo...
6 months ago
« gammerus : Indeed. Clerks have laughed at me for asking for some non-leather shoes, but ask for a faux fur coat and everyone is eager as hell to help me find it.
It is a very frustrating culture.
That's because cows aren't cute but furry things are.

Honestly, I have a real sealskin coat and boots, real moosehide mittens, real rabbit mittens, a beaver hat.... I think it's the best gear out there and I have no problem with people wearing animals if they're going to use it, if you know what I mean. I get mad when it's all just a fashion statement.
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23
 gammerus
6 months ago
« tundramonkey : That's because cows aren't cute but furry things are.

Honestly, I have a real sealskin coat and boots, real moosehide mittens, real rabbit mittens, a beaver hat.... I think it's the best gear out there and I have no problem with people wearing animals if they're going to use it, if you know what I mean. I get mad when it's all just a fashion statement.
I can assure it is only used as a fashion statement in Arizona.
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25
 tundramo...
6 months ago
« TraumaMamma :
Rats of the Ocean? Where did you come up with that?
Out of sheer curiosity, TM, do you feel the same for actual rats as you do for seals?

I mean, rats are poisoned and killed in very unhumane ways, but you never hear of rat advocacy groups.
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25
 doggyliv...
6 months ago
« tundramonkey : Out of sheer curiosity, TM, do you feel the same for actual rats as you do for seals?

I mean, rats are poisoned and killed in very unhumane ways, but you never hear of rat advocacy groups.
I personally think ANY animal however aesthetically unpleasant that's treated inhumanely and killed unnecessarily is wrong IMO
0
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6
 bingo
6 months ago
I couldn't read the article. I just couldn't make myself.
Maybe this is a stupid question but what do they use the seals for? Fur? Meat?
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10
 KingKoop...
6 months ago
Out of curiosity, has anyone ever seen an objective article written on the issue? I couldn't read this one, but not for the same reasons as most others-- I couldn't because all it was was a few pages of loaded words and subjectivity, no more accurate than the average blog. And it masqueraded as a news article to boot.

I'll pay attention when a reporter does his job: give both sides of the issue and let me decide.
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25
 tundramo...
6 months ago
« KingKoopa : Out of curiosity, has anyone ever seen an objective article written on the issue? I couldn't read this one, but not for the same reasons as most others-- I couldn't because all it was was a few pages of loaded words and subjectivity, no more accurate than the average blog. And it masqueraded as a news article to boot.

I'll pay attention when a reporter does his job: give both sides of the issue and let me decide.
Yeah, the CBC's done a few fairly unbiased newspieces (and a good number of biased ones, but it's the CBC), and last year or the year before I read a well done article in ... the Globe and Mail or the Post, I can't remember which one.

Anyway, as a Canadian, the whole doe-eyed baby seal stories aren't nearly as popular, but I think that's because the government and the CBC strive to keep us informed, using facts instead of feelings.
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25
 tundramo...
6 months ago
« doggylives :

The baby seal looks into the eyes of her executioner. Barely a flicker of emotion shows on the fisherman's face as he smashes a steel-tipped club into her mouth. She lies whimpering on the ice, blood pouring from her jaw and nose.
Maritimers/Labradorites/Newfies are intense. The Newfie guys I've worked with almost always kill fish with their bare knuckes.

That's all I can think of when I read this description. I know it shouldn't make me laugh, but if I could show you the video in my head of this one guy Keith killing the fish, you'd laugh too.
5
quote #13
27
 TraumaMa...
6 months ago
« tundramonkey:Yeah, the CBC's done a few fairly unbiased newspieces (and a good number of biased ones, but it's the CBC), and last year or the year before I read a well done article in ... the Globe and Mail or the Post, I can't remember which one.

Anyway, as a Canadian, the whole doe-eyed baby seal stories aren't nearly as popular, but I think that's because the government and the CBC strive to keep us informed, using facts instead of feelings.
I get flack every year for killing Bambi. In a huge way, I understand what you are saying, when you support the seal hunt.

In fact, due to huge population growth around here and building, deer have no homes. Local metroparks authorize sharpshooters to cull the herds. Either that or they end up going thru windshields as they get hit EVERY single day during rutting season.

I support that cull. The deer are headshot and meat donated to shelters.

Seals on the other hand are not overpopulated as I can see, we compete with their food (cod) and the carcasses are tossed over the side or left to rot on the ice. This seal hunt is way different that local native groups, (which I support) but one done for commercial reasons and for the fur.

I would have an easier time embracing the hunt as a hunter myself if it was for meat for local impoverished as well.

Hunting ANY animal for fashion fur is wrong. What you have, you need and I support that.

I, myself, am sad when I harvest an animal. But I know I am keeping a factory farmed animal off my plate as well. And when I do buy beef, pork , or chicken I go to a place that raises the animals free range.
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