Despite worldwide condemnation, the BBC reports that my Canadian neighbors have “given the go-ahead for what is expected to be one of the biggest seal hunts in the country for decades. The government says the hunt is now more humane and that more than 300,000 seals can be killed this year. …” More Below : : : 
The site for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has a ticking clock — as I post this, little more than 3 days and 22 hours remain before the hunt begins. HSUS is asking everyone to sign up for a boycott of Canadian seafood, and has a guide for restaurant and seafood professionals.
Why does HSUS advocate boycotting Canadian seafood?
Advocates of the hunt say, “Large-scale hunting will be allowed to continue until the number falls to under four million.”
Tim Carnan, a managing editor of hsus.org, gives a “portrait of the breeding grounds as natural art”:
MAGDALEN ISLANDS, QUEBEC, March 22—The harp seals’ breeding ground off the coast here is a world in motion. The ice floes, some as large as small towns, float imperceptibly as you stand on them. Spike your walking stick into the hard-packed snow that covers these thick slabs of ice and then fix the tip of the stick on some point on the horizon (if you can find anything on the pale-blue horizon that’s fixed). You’ll find, in a matter of minutes, that the fixed point has moved. …
For centuries, this isolated area provided protection to harp seal females about to give birth, but sometime in the early 16th century, European fishing settlers began killing these animals for food and fur. entury, European fishing settlers began killing these animals for food and fur. Some 500 years later, seal hunters have a different motivation—they’re trying to pocket some extra cash between fishing seasons. Sealers also have far better tools at their fingertips then their 16th century counterparts. Powerful ice-breaking boats and sophisticated aerial-spotting techniques allow hunters to pinpoint and access seals with relative ease. ….
last year, as I did every day, I’m hanging out with the kids in the library before the school bell rings, and we’re cruisin’ Encarta.
“What’s that? OH WOW! OHHHHH, that’s so cute!!!” I tell them — they’re kindergartners mostly so can’t read — that those are baby harp seals. Then, in my typical subversive way, I slip in, “You know, some hunters bash them on the head and take their fur.”
And one button-nosed litle kindergartner roared, “I’d like to BASH THEM on the head!”
I ask because Quebec has some of the lowest standards for humane treatment of animals in North America. From work with animal rights advocates in Quebec, a cultural shift will be required before progress in animal rights can be achieved.
You’re making me try to remember something … terrible, terrible treatment of dogs and cats there, and more. And, if I recall, it’s among the Natives. Right?
…
Yes, it’s off the east coast of Canada where, of course, the ice floes are.
…
I’m curious about something else. If the fish stocks are dramatically dropping — and that’s one of the explanations given for the economic reason to kill seals — how in the hell are the seals thriving? They need ample fish stocks too. Something about this makes no sense. (Just like the Alaskans shooting wolves makes no sense.)
– it’s perfectly okay with me, as long as the animals get a swift death.
Why shouldn’t it be?
the only answer you should give.
I don’t eat meat. I am vegan. Therefore I give a different answer: It is just as wrong as killing any other animals, and less wrong than factory farming for food production.
I personally often think about going vegan. While I don’t consider this mandatory, I do consider it the ethically preferable option.
What I don’t get is how anyone can get worked up about seal-hunting who don’t object ten times more ferociously to industrial meat production. Why don’t Americans rebel, for instance, against the practice of cutting off cow’s tails for the farmer’s convenience, or the barbarism of pigs spending their entire lives chained to the floor? No, let’s rage, rage against the clubbing of ‘adorable little big-eyed seals’ instead – animals who spend their days roaming free until a few of them meet a hunter. (And keep in mind that, when seal populations boost relative to available food, thousands starve to death in infancy until the balance is readjusted.) Mindless sentimentality serves no purpose, and it makes me a little mad.
Yes. We do totally agree.
I respect the hunter who hunts their own food far more than I do the McDonald’s consumer or anyone else who participates in the “factory farming” of “live stock.”
I don’t want to eat any other animal life-forms. But I understand how this can be a gray moral area – with humane and just people coming up with different answers to the question of killing and eating animals for food. But it is not humane to put animals through hellish lives in order for corporate farmers to make profits, and for consumers to get cheap meat.
Not okay. Ick.
hi susan…one of the daily sites I go to for my ‘charity clicking’ had added a site in conjuction with the IFAW(International Federation of Animal Welfare). At the care2 site they have one for stopping the killing of the baby seals. Every day I click it generates money for ads to be aired in Canada to stop this horrible practice.
Several of these sites also had generated petitions to sign for stopping this inhumane practice.
This is such an incredibly barbaric practice it’s hard to believe it is still in effect.