Listen Evvy, I don’t mean to be a troll, but you should get some facts straight before you go off on some moral quest… and start an online petition.
Point #1: The two or three hundred thousand seals killed annually won’t put a dent in their overall population in the long run. There’ll be just as many next year. There IS credibility to the statement that they threaten cod stocks. The cod around Newfoundland has already been overfished by big companies and foriegn vessels, the seals make it much worse, taking their numbers down DOES make a difference.
Point #2: People go on and on about the cruelty done to these seals thanks to a few doctored images of seals crying, and a few selected shots done to amplify the emotion that they want people to feel when they see these images. Anti-seal hunt images are propoganda like anything else, and believe me, there’s a lot of people profiting in that business who don’t give a damn about the seals.
Point #3: Despite what the aforementioned images would have you believe, the seal hunt isn’t a big brutal killfest where there’s no care whatsoever taken and the seals are harvested just for the fur. Or oil. That was the old days. Now, anything that’s usable on the seal is used. In some European countries the seal meat is a delicacy, however thanks to big world powers who have no interests in seal hunting sticking their noses into the business because it’s good publicity (coughUScough) they’ve put a stop to it based on flimsy moral arguements. It’s not wasteful, no matter how much they like to say it is.
Point #4: For a lot of people, the Seal Hunt is a way of life, and a means of living. And for a lot of Seal Hunters, it isn’t so simple as just packing up and moving. It’s either hunt, or be poor. They’re just trying to make a living, they’re not barbarians.
Point #5: I assure you, what’s done to the Seals is far, FAR, less barbaric than what’s done to the average cow at a slaughterhouse. If you saw what happens in one of those things you’d lose your taste for beef in a hurry. It’s nothing but absolute hypocracy to be against the Seal Hunt, while eating a burger from McDonalds, or any other meat product, really. (and if you happen to be a vegetarian, Eva, then sorry. But there’s a lot of other animals killed for use in our day to day lives aside from just meat products, so the point still stands)
Sorry if my opinion is against what’s popular, but this whole Seal Hunt thing is just another slap in the face to Newfoundland’s economy as far as I’m concerned. Things have been bad enough here lately as it is, we certainly don’t need morality-spouting hotshots in the federal government shutting down yet another producer of revenue here just for the sake of politics. I’m not saying that people who don’t believe in the seal hunt are bad people or anything, they have a right to believe what they wish. But the seal hunters have a right to make a living, especially when the situation is so bad here that they really don’t have another option.
You think the Seal hunt should stop due to barbaric cruelty? Fine, but so should a lot of other things. But people don’t care about those. The beef industry is a tad too powerful to be brought down, which is why you don’t frequently see propoganda about helpless cows being slaughtered. Not to mention they’re not very attractive-looking. Seals, on the other hand, are cute and adorable. And they make great propaganda. Digitally insert a few tears (Seals DON’T have tear ducts) and you’re making the hunter who is just doing his job look like an unspeakable monster. People eat that stuff up.
Sorry to rant. I’ve just been annoyed with the whole situation over the past few months. That, and I took a class studying native people in the arctic, so perhaps I’ve gotten a bit too opinionated about stuff like this…