As many of you will know, I have Canadian citizenship in addition to British/EU citizenship.
However, today is a sad day to be a Canadian with the news that the senseless annual seal ‘cull’ has started. By the time the cull ends in a few weeks time, it is expected that the entire quota of 325,000 animals will be killed.
Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said Canada is a victim of an “international propaganda campaign”, and insists that the cull will be carried out humanely.
However Roger Simone of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans admits this is “an annual harvest and it is based on economics… It is harvesting animals on a sustainable basis”.
Which kind of puts pay to the feeble excuse that this is about controlling seal numbers. It’s not. It’s soley about money.
And it all seems very sad considering the industry around selling seal pelts, meat and other derivative commodities must pale into insignificance when tallied against Canada’s wider economy.
There have been some far more distressing, graphic images to come out of recent culls, which I’m not to going to reproduce here.
However I would appeal those who feel the cull is reasonable to check out the IFAW’s website for an alternative perspective [WARNING: this site contains images of dead seals, skinned seals, and seals in the process of being clubbed to death].
The images I’ve seen appal and sicken me, and if they sicken you, I urge you to download the IFAW’s report “Seal and Sealing in Canada 2006” and sign the petition to be delivered to Prime Minister Harper.
I could quite happily go out there with a baseball bat and club these butchers to death myself and see how much outcry there is about THAT. All this for the purpose of vanity and greed. Ain’t the human race wonderful?
Disgusting. If thier could be a more cruel way I couldnt think of it. There will always be circumstances for culls but this is not for the right reasons and the methods are barbaric and seem more for the perverse pleasure of the clubbers than anything else.
Actually from my research, it appears that this cull is conducted for the right reasons. I think the bigger problem is the tendency of many people (especially “celebs”) to not independently research and verify facts surrounding an issue before forming & acting on their opinions, thus the abundance of what I call cause- or crusade-wankers. After seeing some of the debate between the Mccartneys & Danny Williams (Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador province, where the seal hunt is) on the Larry King show, reading that show transcript online for what I missed, and looking up the issue elsewhere, I found the facts quite different from popular opinion.
Even the latest “celeb” on the bandwagon Pamela Anderson admits not having read up on/met/spoken with anyone in the sealing industry but she’s still ranting and demanding to meet the Prime Minister who has refused hers and Brigitte Bardot’s earlier request (not sure where people get the idea that Canadian PMs do nothing all day therefore have time to meet with anybody who drops by with any agenda that they are currently misinformed on).