Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.
~Mahatma Gandhi
Cruelty knows no bounds and there are times when my inferior canine brain(compared to the great humans) fails to comprehend the gravity of the lurking conundrum. As readers of this space know that I’m a dog, an animal- primitive, wild and uneducated. Yet, like most of my animal friends, I may hunt for food but never for fun, fur or fashion. If religion wasn’t enough of an opium to kill the mute(Nepal), Canadian govt. hosts an annual seal hunt festival that sees hundreds of thousands of seal killed for fur. They do defend their gruesome sport via claims like it supports the economy, but facts have framed an altogether different picture revealing a stark reality which is quite unlike the govt. claims.
Just in time for Canada Day, PETA will be running its new “Explore Elsewhere” ad featuring a rendition of Canada’s national anthem “O Canada” playing over footage of baby seals as they are clubbed to death. The ad will run on Google and several travel blogs this week to let potential tourists researching Canadian summer vacations know that the Canadian government still sponsors the annual seal slaughter, which just concluded in Newfoundland. World leaders as diverse as Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and His Holiness The Dalai Lama have spoken out against the controversial massacre and have pleaded to Stop Canada Seal Hunt.
I wonder if it’s that necessary to wear fur? Drawing analogies with African blood diamonds, seal hunts also show that the consumers care only about the beauty of the finished product while overlooking the gruesome process which ‘polished’ the ‘product’.
Reminds me of this scene from Ace Ventura: When Nature calls
Ace: That’s a lovely wrap you’re wearing! Perhaps I could buy you some fluffy new slippers, made from the heads of innocent and defenseless baby seals!
The Monopoly Guy: Who is this ghastly man?
Ace: Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. And YOU must be the Monopoly guy! Hey.
You people have been duped. The people running that site are misleading you to say the least. First off, no white seals (IE babies) are killed. Haven’t been killed in over 20 years since it was banned. Only juveniles and adults who have lost their baby fur are hunted.
Secondly, the main reason for the seal hunt is NOT commercial. At least not the commercial fur industry. You may recall it has gotten warmer over the past few years.. you may recall that the arctic ice is at its lowest point in history and has been getting less and less as we get warmer and warmer. You know what lives on that ice? Polar Bears! What, exactly, do you think they eat? It isn’t twigs and berries! They eat seals! But, because there is no ice, they can’t hunt!
So.. you have a extremely large population of seals who’s only predator (other than us) is unable to hunt them and is slowly being wiped out. What exactly do you think happens in that situation? They breed out of control until they eat all the available food and then die. Unfortunately that food that they happen to eating is the same food we need, IE fish!
So we have a choice. We can either cull the seal population, or we can leave them, destroy the entire fishing industry on the east coast (and devastate the marine ecosystem) and invite disease to ravage other native wild life, basically creating a swarm of cute and cuddly looking locusts. As for selling the fur on.. what exactly would you like us to do? Burn them? Throw it away? Or perhaps we can make something good come out of a situation where the choices are between the lesser of two evils. Kill something cute, or risk environmental disaster. You choose.
Dear
You people have been duped. The people running that site are misleading you to say the least. First off, no white seals (IE babies) are killed. Haven’t been killed in over 20 years since it was banned. Only juveniles and adults who have lost their baby fur are hunted.
Secondly, the main reason for the seal hunt is NOT commercial. At least not the commercial fur industry. You may recall it has gotten warmer over the past few years.. you may recall that the arctic ice is at its lowest point in history and has been getting less and less as we get warmer and warmer. You know what lives on that ice? Polar Bears! What, exactly, do you think they eat? It isn’t twigs and berries! They eat seals! But, because there is no ice, they can’t hunt!
So.. you have a extremely large population of seals who’s only predator (other than us) is unable to hunt them and is slowly being wiped out. What exactly do you think happens in that situation? They breed out of control until they eat all the available food and then die. Unfortunately that food that they happen to eating is the same food we need, IE fish!
So we have a choice. We can either cull the seal population, or we can leave them, destroy the entire fishing industry on the east coast (and devastate the marine ecosystem) and invite disease to ravage other native wild life, basically creating a swarm of cute and cuddly looking locusts. As for selling the fur on.. what exactly would you like us to do? Burn them? Throw it away? Or perhaps we can make something good come out of a situation where the choices are between the lesser of two evils. Kill something cute, or risk environmental disaster. You choose.