You just said yourself that those sources are biased. Granted, so are the people who want the hunt to continue. But I’ll say this, the target seals of the hunt are not only days and weeks old, that’s just what the anti-seal activists like to keep saying. Yes, some are taken, but it’s not all they’re after. If that were the case the population would have died out LONG ago. Besides, it’s not just the hunt that has decreased seal numbers in the last couple of centuries. Expansion, global warming, decreasing fish population, have all played a part. In recent years the fact that the seal population is lower is irrelevant, its that the seal to fish ration is much smaller than it was, more need to be killed or else they’re all just going to starve anyway. The hunt hasn’t been slaughtering millions of seals carelessly, it’s not an extermination.
Again, eye-witnesses can also be biased. It helps if a few dollars are put in their pocket. There have certainly have been instances of exaggerating details for the sake of making some propaganda. Again, I’m not saying they all are, but you have to keep all this in mind when you’re reading this stuff. And you should care about the profitting on either side, because that affects what you see in either propaganda. Though I can gaurentee there’s no little people making a living in the anti-seal hunt activism.
Funny, because from what I understand it’s that seals are killed as quickly as possible. If they feel anything at all it’s for a split second, so long as things are done right. I’m not saying mistakes aren’t made (and whenever they are I’ll be it’s THOSE images you’re seeing which are presented as the way it’s always done) but people are only human. Care IS taken to make sure the seals don’t suffer.
People don’t need the oil anymore, that was part of my point. The grisley images of seal slaughter that people are familiar with come from the old days of seal hunting, where it was a ‘grab all you can’ industry where the sole product was the oil. Nowadays, however, it is more for the meat and the fur, and in some cases the bones, and people do take care to be humane over pure quantity. I’m not saying that Newfoundlanders hunt them for their skins (though there are peoples who do) but it’s an industry, it’s a job. They get seal carcasses, they get money. And sorry if you ‘refuse’ to accept it, but that IS the case. There are a lot of places in Newfoundland where towns were settled based on one industry, and after the Feds totally screwed up the fishery, a lot of those towns pretty much died. There are similar places that rely on the seal hunt, they lose that, they got nothing. And a lot of those people don’t have the funds to just pack up and move. Do you want to go to these places and tell these people they can’t live in the place they grew up anymore because you, a total stranger, is uncomfortable with the idea of them killing seals?
Well you’ll need to make a LOT of changes. Good luck with that, you’ll need it.
Again, it’s not painful if it’s done right. And they do. Perhaps I’m not making myself clear on this point, but THE ECONOMY IN THESE SMALL TOWNS IN NEWFOUNDLAND IS NOT GOOD. It’s not like the rest of Canada. And we, as a province, have been literally slapped in the face since we joined confederation every time it’s slightly convenient for the Feds to take something for us, rather than fight for it. Did they put harder restrictions on commercial fisheries, and pressure foriegn vessels from fishing in the Grand Banks? Nope. They just closed the local fishery despite all the evidence that the local fishery was not going to hurt the cod stocks in the way that the other two aforementioned fisheries had. They didn’t care if they virtually destroyed all those towns. Now it’s the same thing, instead of standing up to anti-seal activists for the sake of the people they’re supposed to be in office to serve, they’re taking the easy way out. It’s just a few more little towns in Newfoundland, right? What do they matter?
And in doing so you’re essentially hurting other people. Oh, but it’s ‘alright’ because they’re ‘hunters’. I’m sorry but I just don’t buy that. The anti-seal hunt movement has only gotten so big because A) Seals are cute and people can identify with them, and B) The hunt is not supported by any big, wealthy organization and it can’t really fight back. That’s why it’s so easy for people to jump on this, when there are dozens of much better causes out there. You just have to spend the time searching for them. I’m not telling you how to live your life, but I’m saying that you can’t just support this with a clean conscience. There are people who depend on it, and a lot of them have no other way. And a lot of hunters are rightfully fed up that people they’ve never met before, who have never SEEN a seal in their lives, are telling them what they can or cannot do. I’m against animal cruelty as much as the next guy, but when it comes down to these areas that have no other economy to go on, then I can live with the lives of a few hundred thousand seals a year. Especially since, with the way things are going with the evironment and the fish population, many of those would have died anyway.