Ok so,
In reading the articles 'Trix posted I've pulled out a few pieces that I think we overlap on;
The lethal factor our current and ongoing animal holocaust in America is deceptively simple: economics. Greater profits can be realized by increasing the number of animals living per square foot in any given farm space, as well as an increased speed at the time of slaughter and processing. Compassion is costly, in both time and space. Compassion therefore, is a luxury. This truth should be sobering: our capitalist system is a powerful tsunami, a sweeping wave of undeniable momentum. Would-be ethical impulses for good are overcome, covered over, and swept away by the great pounding of an incessant rationalization: how much return on the investment per square head? for the corporations, and how much will it cost me to feed my family this week? for the general public. Cruelty is cheap, in dollar terms, but is costly in the currency of human culpability.
All living organisms require food to sustain their life. Within that absolute, human beings must grasp with compassion the nuanced complexity of interdependence: the use of animal protein for sustenance does not require the brazen cruelty of factory farming. Alternatives to factory farming must be sought out. This may involve using biotechnologies to mass-produce non-animal protein for human consumption (see David Pearce, "The Hedonistic Imperative").
I think we agree factory farming is evil and needs to be addressed. However I'm not seeing how that fact cancels out the issue of the seal hunt. I feel fairly confident that I have addressed it in step with my views as an omnivore.
If we start with the premise that the entire way our culture interacts with animals for food and by products is wrong, how does that rule out the inhumane conditions of the seal hunt?
"This is another example of those who neither understand nor respect
proper wildlife management getting involved in matters best left to
trained biologists who make their decisions based on scientific studies
and biological truths," McQuay concluded. "The seal hunt is closely
monitored and tightly regulated. Sealers are well-trained in humane
hunting methods and are, as a group, responsible and law abiding. COHA
has nothing but respect for the sealers and their right to earn a living
without being harassed by those who have little understanding of the real
world."
Okay let's ask the biologists and sealers. I suspect we will find a wide range of opinions there as well.
Warning issued
The Telegram (St. John's)
Mon 22 Jan 2007
Page: A1
Section: Front
Byline: Rosie Gillingham
Source:
"If sealers continue to harvest at the same rates over the next few years, it could spell trouble for the herd population, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' leading marine mammal scientist."
Poor ice conditions have had a big impact on the mortality rate, Stenson said. It has resulted in the deaths of many pups, which have drowned..
"You start getting to the point where there's fewer young coming in. It's kind of like our rural communities in Newfoundland - the young just aren't there," said Stenson, a biology professor at Memorial University and member of the committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada marine mammal subcommittee.
"And when it really has an impact is when those young should be there to breed, which happens (in seals), on average, at around five years of age."
Other causes of mortality include struck and loss - in which sealers shoot and kill the animal but are unable to retrieve it - and fishing gear catches, in which young harp seals are caught in fishermen's gear while they catching lump fish in the spring.
Stenson said for the commercial hunt, scientists estimate a between two and five per cent loss due to struck and loss. However, he said scientists apply a 50 per cent loss in the Arctic, where data is collected and recorded in varying ways. Seals in the Arctic and Greenland, he said, are also often shot in open waters. When compiling a population model, the seals in the Arctic and Greenland are included since they are from the same population, which is migratory.
DFO mismanagement
Economic alternatices to killing
BRUSHING SEALS FOR THEIR FUR:
As might easily be imagined, baby Harp seals have some of the most amazingly insulative fur on the planet. Each individual hair follicle of their famous "white coats" is hollow, keeping the babies warm and happy in the subzero temperatures. As the babies continue through their stages of growth, they begin to molt and lose this outer layer of super insulative hair. This is when they can be easily brushed and the hair collected for bedding and other applications. Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has attempted on multiple occasions to introduce this idea to the world, and more importantly, to the Canadian sealers themselves. Although the money offered to the sealers for each brushed seal was MORE THAN THE SUBSIDY OF AN UNWANTED PELT, the idea was rejected time after time.
The sealers reasoning for rejection? As one sealer put it in 1999 in the Magdelein Islands, "Seals are meant to be clubbed, not brushed. We dont want nothing to do with no faggoty idea like that". (yes, an another amazing yet actual documented quote caught by the media) |
