The Canadian Seal Slaughter

[wardric]

OK, BIG difference between 2 guys boarding with a letter as a publicity stunt and just standing there and a commando team with automatic weapons which stormed the ship and handcuffed the crew.

yep, big difference. The first one is illegal and the second is legal.

If 2 guys had done the same as those 2 SS did in the USA, they would still be in jail and there would be a nice new wreck to dive. If they had done it in some middle eastern country, they would have had their head chopped.

But tell us a bit more about you Terillja, where are you from? what country?

 

[tedtim]

I think you miss the point of the crab boycott- it is a boycott to make Canada stop sealing, what the item is that is used to put pressure on the country is completely irrelevant. The only point is to choose an item which will financially hurt the country. They chose to target Canadian crab. They could have just as easily targeted canadian christmas trees.

Think back to the early US. They protested taxation without representation and had boycotts of many things to protest the stamp act, they chose tea because it would have a large economic impact on the British. They could have chosen anything else, just as HSUS chose crab but could have chosen anything.

I think that your comparison of boycotting the tea is a bit off. That action was about building a nation and not just about economic activity.

I would say that I do not miss the point at all. This is a case where an organization that believes they have a degree of power is misusing it. To target an industry such as the crab fishery is not going to in any way address the seal harvesting. What it does it attack the livelihood of a fully legitimate area of an economy and generate nothing but increased hostility.

The HSUS should do a bit more looking within the US.

Damn, we should be more gentle with those cute animals when we kill them. If we are brutal when we kill them, then we should not use their hides for anything.:11:

The same people that take that view are the ones who are concerned about the dying reefs because they are living things.

These same people are not against killing plants (living things) to eat, but heck, let the sight of blood being spilt on the ice be shown on television and they are in an outrage. They will get into their polluting vehicles and drive to the nearest protest. They will get onto their cell phones (which are replaced every couple of years to get the latest features) and arrange protests. They will spam the internet to get their point across. Some say this is acceptable; I say that trampling on someone else's rights because you don't like what they do is counter to the way a free nation works.

How many of them would give up air conditioning to reduce pollution?

How many of them eat cod, which is overfished by the European nations?

Here is the Sea Shepard Society's Mission Statement
"Established in 1977, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is an international non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization whose mission is to end the destruction of habitat and slaughter of wildlife in the world’s oceans in order to conserve and protect ecosystems and species.

Sea Shepherd uses innovative direct-action tactics to investigate, document, and take action when necessary to expose and confront illegal activities on the high seas. By safeguarding the biodiversity of our delicately-balanced ocean ecosystems, Sea Shepherd works to ensure their survival for future generations."

So, trying to foul a boat's propeller and getting in the way of a legal activity are "innovative direct action tactics?" What gives this organization the right to take action when necessary to expose and confront illegal activities and then profess to have done nothing wrong while accusing a lawful nation from taking action to protect their citizens? They take action against what they consider to be illegal activities. Seal hunting is not illegal. This is just a bunch of bunk.

If they are really the good citizens they profess to be, then perhaps they should be squeaky clean in following the law themselves first. Taking action to stop a legal activity is trampling on the rights of others and is illegal in the action taken.

Watson can take his claim of piracy into the court and argue. I can't wait to see how he will defend his group's illegal activities of interfering with the legal seal hunt.

I may not like the seal hunt, but I will defend the right of those who do it as long as it is legal.

The Canadian government has a responsibility to defend its citizens. The Canadian government also has a responsibility for search and rescue (one of the things the Coast Guard is doing). The Coast Guard is also responsible to determinine when anyone is violating the law and taking the action to address illegal activities. This is done for fishermen as well as sealers, as well as anyone who is illegally interfering with those activities. When there is activity like this, there will be accidents - that is the nature of working on the water. Murray Teitel's argument about the cost of the Coast Guard is way off base.

Now, I gotta go out and stop those damn people from tapping into the maple trees to get the sap for maple syrup. They are sucking the lifeblood from the trees.:11:

 

[terrillja]

yep, big difference. The first one is illegal and the second is legal.

Depending on where the boat was when it was seized. Just the same as how the US coast guard or any other country can't just run aground taking boats on the open seas for the hell of it. People need to wait until the GPS unit has been downloaded.

 

[vicdiver656]

Well, I am definitely against the slaughter of seals in Canada. Being a Canadian, I have had the chance to learn about different issues in Canada, among them being the seal hunt. Someone mentioned Greenpeace, and other organizations like it; I have no problem with these organizations, as long as they do not resort to extreme civil disobediance in order to get their point across; and as long as they do not unintentially harm the animals they are trying to save. A while ago, Greenpeace members decided to spray seals with paint in order to ruin the pelts, making them worthless to hunters. Little did they know, the paint was harming the seals, and caused some to die. Someone also mentioned that he will not stand in the way of the hunt as long as it is legal. I agree. It is next to impossible to stop such a thing as the seal hunt by committing a crime, and that is often not appreciated by organizations like GreenPeace, as it gives them a bad name... (though it might appear as heroism to others)

In short, the killing of seals is horrible, and should be stopped. I do realize however, after stating this, that many people rely on the seals as a source of income, and the sudden stop of the hunt could result in some economic problems.

 

[cdreamer]

The millions Ottawa spends subsidizing the seal hunt
By Murray Teitel

April 17, 2008

Whether you think killing seals is a bad thing or a good thing, whether you think it barbaric or humane, you should oppose Canada’s annual seal hunt.

According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) the justification for the hunt is to provide economic opportunities for Canada’s coastal communities. Last year, according to its Web site, this entire economic opportunity amounted to $12-million, the value of all seal pelts landed. They fetched on average $52 a pelt. According to evidence given to Parliament’s standing committee on fisheries and oceans on Nov. 6, 2006, half of that is eaten up by expenses, so we are talking, at most, $6-million that flowed to the sealers themselves: one-tenth of 1% of Newfoundland’s GDP. (This year it will be even less, because pelts of three to four week old “beaters” that make up 95% of the catch are selling for between $6 and $33.)

This $6-million costs Canadians at least 10 times as much and does so year after year. First of all, there is the cost of deploying the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) to the seal hunt for seven weeks each year. Last year it involved 10 vessels, many of them icebreakers, helicopters and patrol planes. Nobody in government knows, even less wants to know, what this costs. DFO claims it costs nothing because the boats and aircraft are owned and the crews are on salary. Does it cost nothing to put out fires in Toronto because it owns the trucks and firefighters aren’t on piecework? Toronto hires firefighters and buys trucks based on the anticipated number and severity of fires. A significant part of what CCG does is rescue sealers. Some 24% of its 2003 fishing vessel rescues derived from this hunt. Without it, CCG’s annual budget could be significantly reduced. One hunt-deployed icebreaker, the Amundsen, costs $50,000 per day to operate in winter. Given DFO’s lack of transparency, one can only estimate the annual CCG cost attributable to the hunt at $5-million.

Secondly, every year some disaster occurs. Last year, it was heavy ice that trapped sealers for days on end. Some even ran out of cigarettes! DFO calculated the extra CCG costs due to heavy ice at $3.41-million. It also paid $7.9-million to owners of boats damaged by ice. This year, it is the drowning of four sealers and the near drowning of two while being rescued by CCG. This resulted in the cost of an unsuccessful week-long 2,800 nautical square mile search for one of the drowned and his boat involving patrol planes, helicopters and three icebreakers. The inevitable lawsuits and legal bills will easily cost more than $6-million.

Thirdly, millions are spent every year trying to counter bans on the importation of seal products. Our NAFTA partners and four European countries have imposed bans. Four countries have announced intentions to do so. Italy and Luxembourg have suspended imports. The European Parliament resolved to impose an EU-wide ban. The Council of Europe has called on its 46 members to do so.

Canada has taken Holland and Belgium to the World Trade Organization in Geneva. Aside form being terribly expensive, it jeopardizes a relationship with two countries with which Canada has a trade surplus. $5.2-million of raw seal products constitutes less than 1/1,000 of what we export to Europe.

The DFO, since at least 2003, has been flying high-level delegations to Europe to argue against the bans. Last year, there were at least six such junkets. For example, on March 27, 2007, a 17-person delegation was dispatched to the British Parliament for a meeting attended by only five British MPs. Last month, seven Canadians, including Loyola Sullivan, ambassador for fisheries conservation, the Premier of Nunavut and a Newfoundland Cabinet minister flew to four European capitals for a week.

Unfortunately, they seem to use a travel agent who excels at finding the most expensive fares available. When Mr. Sullivan flew on seal business to five European capitals this January, the airfare alone was $10,270.80. The DFO’s Kevin Stringer flew to Paris for $4,459.65 on Sept. 5, 2007. Of course, this is nothing compared with the $16,025.25 spent on airfare to Australia and New Zealand by the DFO’s director general of economic analysis whom I wish would do an economic analysis of his own expense accounts. With hotels, wines, meals and support staff, this adds up.

They have as much chance of stemming this tide as Germany did of stopping the Allies after D Day. The battle is lost. But because of ideological fanaticism they keep fighting, secure in the delusion that the Canadian taxpayer, like the cod, is an inexhaustible resource that will forever fund this foolishness that only benefits the high-end European tourism industry.

Fourthly, there is the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) led boycott that is largely responsible for the inflation adjusted $465-million drop in the value of Canadian exports of snow crabs — the main seafood export to the United States from Canada’s sealing provinces — since April, 2005. The value of 2007 snow crab exports is 44% lower than it was in 2004, the year prior to the boycott.

HSUS has to date persuaded almost 3,600 U.S. businesses to participate, including heavy hitters Publix (annual sales $24-billion), Whole Foods ($7-billion), WinCo Foods, Lowe’s Foods, Harris Teeter ($3-billion each) and smaller, seafood-driven ones like Legal Sea Foods ($400-million). Sealing creates less than 1% of the value of the sealing provinces’ fishery. Sacrifice 99% for the sake of 1%. Now there’s a business plan!

Finally, there is the cost of the DFO seal-hunt bureaucracy, which alone has to cost more than the sealers earn: license issuers, accountants, typists, file clerks, inspectors, quota setters, regulation drafters, “scientists,” “statisticians,” “economic analysts,” speech writers, media relations officers, anti-boycott propagandists, writers of replies to angry letters, arrangers of tours of European journalists (when the seal hunt is not taking place), all in the service of what DFO says is 5,000 to 6,000 (more like 2,000, I believe) people averaging $1,000 a year from killing 275,000 seals. There is a conflict of interest in the DFO having jurisdiction over the Coast Guard. If it were controlled by the Minister of Defence, he’d immediately see that for what he is spending on the seal hunt, he could outfit an artillery regiment.

Enough already. This is a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money. And the sealers? Sealers should prefer these monies be used to train them for jobs in the 21st-century economy, rather than to preserve them as relics of a hunter/gatherer one.

 

[fisherdvm]

As for this being some kind of life line income for the Canadian fishermen, sorry folks don't buy it. Even if it is I think they can modernize a bit and find a more human way of making a living. This is the 21st century boys and girls.

Here I am, sitting in Metro Detroit, MI. We have the highest unemployment rate in the USA, and Windsor is not much better. About the only job you can get is flipping burger.

You're telling me in the boony of Canada, they can modernize, and make a living in the 21 st century? The first settlers in Canada and the US were trappers, hunters, and fur traders. The native americans were trappers and hunters. They coexisted with and protected the land.

Sorry if I offended you.... I guess I didn't realized it till it was pointed out to me.

 

[tedtim]

Depending on where the boat was when it was seized. Just the same as how the US coast guard or any other country can't just run aground taking boats on the open seas for the hell of it. People need to wait until the GPS unit has been downloaded.

You might want to have a read of the Canadian Oceans Act, specifically Part 1 for a definition of Territorial Waters, Contiguous zone, and Economic Exclusion Zone.

AFAIK from what I have read in the media, the Canadian Coast Guard was not operating in the open seas and they were not taking boats for the hell of it. There was an act taken by the crew of the Farley Mowat that violated Canadian law. I don't think that Watson denied this anywhere, he just insisted that they were not in Canadian waters.

You know, all of the noise here is not about whether there should be a seal hunt, but the ways that the hunters use to do their business. The seals are not an endangered species like whales. The effort of the folks to ban the seal hunt because they believe that the methods are inhumane is a bit strange. Killing is a brutal act regardless of the method. I don't see anyone offering an option for a more humane method of killing. Thus, the only solution that they offer is to ban the hunt.

We should ban deer, moose, elk, and other hunting for the same reasons. These animals are shot and there is no way that it is guaranteed that they are killed by the bullet or arrow. They can continue to run while injured and suffer, yet I don't see the same cry about hunting this game as I do for hunting seals.

On another note, I wonder just how well the Farley Mowat would do on inspection of the vessel. I suggest it is highly likely that the vessel is operating in violation of other laws.

 

[aquaman_06]

I have read most of the replies posted since my last post. Not all but most. Wardric, you and I just don't see eye to eye, doubt we ever will. As I have stated time and time again I am against sealing - I have given countless reasons why I am against it and no matter what any person tells me I will continue to be against it. I am also against the notion that you can make light of or joke about or be happy about the death of innocent people. Do I feel SS has done this in the case of the sealers - perhaps in a round about way. Will I totally discredit SS over this matter, no I won't. Does it lower my opinion of Paul Watson, not so much though if I were to ever speak the man I would inquire why he has been so immature in this campaign.

Paul Watson is a very dedicated and driven conservationist. Perhaps he is too driven at times and perhaps there are times that he allows his desire to better our oceans overtake his reason. He as well as SS crew have done things that I highly disagree with but I believe their end justified their means. I have been to Newfoundland and hope to return soon. I feel Newfoundland is one of the most magical and interesting places on Earth and I sympathize with the fishermen there that need the seal hunt to make a living. One of my favorite bands, Great Big Sea is from Newfoundland and their song "Ferryland Sailor" talks about the plight of the Newfoundlander fishermen. I'm not ignorant to the situation as I have been accused of being, I have close relatives that live in Newfoundland. I disagree with the large scale slaughter of ANYTHING not just seals and feel that people could find more humane ways to make a living.

People have compared this slaughter to many things that for the sake of this discussion are irrelevant. I disagree with the slaughter of animals on any front but this discussion pertains to the slaughter of seals and SS's involvement.

As for Wardric's comments about comparing Watson to Christ I will address those. First many people need to realize that not everyone on Earth follows the same religion. One criticism of contemporary Christians is their unwillingness to accept other's beliefs. This is easy to understand when writers like John MacArthur publish books that claim anyone who does not follow his personal interpretation of the Christian religion will burn. To address your statement Wardric I will recommend some research.

The Essene Church of Christ and the Essene faith believe, based on direct translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls that Christ was in fact a vegetarian and ardent conservationist. They preach that when Christ spoke of peace and caring for the living he meant all living things not just human beings. They also have a Lord’s Prayer also translated from ancient prophetic texts that goes the same as the Lord ’s Prayer Christians speak but after the initial text are through goes on about the caring of Mother Earth and how to live in harmony with our natural world via peace and caring.

Many Christian faiths speak about Christ traveling and living with Buddhist monks and taking in and accepting the beliefs of other religions. If you research some of these ideas you quickly learn that there was much more to Jesus Christ then your minister may be telling you each Sunday.

We must remember that the Bible was once hand copied by monks in ancient monasteries. I read an article that research by a scholar in religious theory showed that some of these monks had family business’ that made their wealth by selling lambs for slaughter at Passover. He theorized that these monk’s altered the text of the bible to make it appear that Christ was not a vegetarian. It would be tough to sell Passover lambs if the entire religious population believed their savior preached not eating meat.

Ancient Essene texts told of a diet that Christ laid out based on eating only fruits from plants. Christ, they believe was a fruitatarian that would only eat the fruit of a vegetable or plant that would not cause the plant to die and stop producing fruit for others.

I work to broaden young people’s minds about the environment regarding our oceans. I became a Coral Reef Biology instructor to do this and do school presentations for local schools through the Oceans for Youth Foundation. I have talked to students about SS because they have asked me about the organization and I always tell them the pro’s and con’s of that type of active approach to conservationism. The fact is many people don’t know ANYTHING about ecology or how an eco-system functions therefore don’t have any appreciation for the animals that live there. I believe though education at a young level and introducing children to new ideas we can make an impact in the world. As long as the children of sealers are indoctrinated to make a living mashing in seals skulls, progress on the marine mammal front will be tough whether or not the hunt is legal.

As for Fisher's statements I believe in protecting all animals cute, cuddly or otherwise. It's not just about protecting the cute ones - it's about protecting them all. To start beating the religious thing to death it's odd to me that Buddha preached caring for and not harming living things (all living things). They say that Mohammond was bathing in a river and when he got out a rabbit was sleeping on his tunick so he cut the tunick around the rabbit for he would not disturb it. Christ spoke about peace and love and harmony with each other but our current President seems to feel bombing the heck out of a country and sending our young people off to die is a good way to do that. He is backed largely by right wing Christian fundamentalists who also support the U.S.'s use of the death penalty. As a whole the human race has skewed the teachings of many religion's founders and our own scientist's to fit what we want and how we want it to be.

If the sealers cannot make money in a manner that supports a horrible industry (the fur industry) and is overally violent and disguisting perhaps they should move somewhere else. I don't see a sealer in any different light then a long line fishermen, whaler, or shark finner. I don't care whether it's legal for them to hunt seals or not.

 

[cdreamer]

Well said Aquaman. I agree with you 100%

 

[D_B]

Aquaman ... while I may not agree that long lines and shark finning is just as bad/same as sealing, I respect you, your efforts at teaching, and that thoughtful post .. discussion, and learning .. cant be a bad thing