mmmooo: Dr Dolittle
Ok so now you can talk to the animals. People in case you didn't notice in the stores have been killing animals on the planet since the beginning of time. Those are the red and white and pink things wrapped in plastic. In fact animals kill animals. Now do I approve or it is just another CD story to keep the pea sized minds of the world occupied. If I witnessed a seal pub getting killed it is a way of life. Now a person, I guess to some you support it is a way of life as well. G T H

Danny Williams goes a bit too far:

Williams assails anti-sealing activist Watson as 'terrorist'

Premier calls for all-out ban on activists at seal hunt

"Ever since I've been aware of him, I've always considered Paul Watson to be, you know, a vile, disgusting excuse for a human being," Williams told CBC News Sunday, as Watson was arriving in Nova Scotia to help bail out the skipper and first officer of the ship.

"I think what a lot of people don't realize is that this man is a terrorist, in fact, you know, to come out with the insensitive remarks, for example, that he came out with a few weeks ago, when these sealers lost their lives and he put their lives below animal lives," Williams said.

Watson sparked an uproar earlier this month when he said that while the deaths of four Quebec sealers was a tragedy, "the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seal pups is an even greater tragedy." ...

"Other countries are recognizing that these people are dangerous and they're not welcome, and I'm delighted that Canada is finally doing the same thing," Williams said.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2008/04/14/williams-watson.html

If you think that is bad, read the part about the 'Phoque- you Paul Watson' t-shirts.

Get with it. Humans are predators by design. As long as our harvesting habits do not lead to extermination of whole species,and lead to fast killing of the animal, I have nothing at all to say against it.
The most severe threat comes to species to our increasing population, encroachment of previously wild areas, and the demand for biofuels etc. will not help that.
Your protests and anger would find more approbriate targets in adressing the sever elimination of forests all along the aequatorial belt, in brazil, indonesia, malaysia etc. Thats where the elimination of species happens, not in the waters of newfoundland, were there surely is an abundance of seal.

Baruch - Danny Williams has launched an ABC (anybody but Conservatives)campaign against Harper's Conservatives during the next Federal election. Harper is fighting against ABC.

The seal hunt is not going away because it is traditional (hundreds of years) and, even if it just fills the freezer, is enough to allow Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to keep living in the Province instead of leaving permanently.

You have a better chance of getting the farmers in Afghanistan to stop growing poppies than stopping the seal hunt.

Same issue - poor people trying to feed their families.

Mark, PhysicsTeacherGuy and Slippyroad what do you think about the Americans going into Afghanistan, destroying the crops and giving the poor farmers nothing in return? You have the sons of seal hunters who are going to be starting their tour of duty over there in Afghanistan who now have to work closely with the Americans.

And it seems that only half of those with seal hunting licenses are actually participating in the hunt - I think that the other half are still working in Alberta and sending money home to their families.

RE: - How can it be a hunt when dimwitted men can move up close enough to some newborn seal pup, that has never seen a man before, and beat its brains out with an iron bar?

They are not allowed to legally kill the newborns (which have a distinctive coat). And, I think they use guns. I don't like the killing of animals, but they are using the fur, the meat, the blubber, and what they can't use, they leave behind (not sure if that is more or less ecologically sound). It is not like a hobbyist killing an animal for fun and not making any use of it at all.

Judith - I can only eat vegetables when nausea free - so being vegan is not for everybody - just those with iron stomachs. I don't eat all that much meat and try to eat more bread and drink more milk and orange juice. "All or none" is a bad policy - but getting people to cut down on how much meat they eat is probably a good idea.

EndCapitalism - a sealer died when his boat was toed and a few others barely escaped with their lives. Fair is fair. I would prefer it if you felt the pain of both sides - not just the well-fed anti-seal bunch with good lawyers. Hey, this story will be in the news four months from now as we will get the updates on it. Good publicity for you guys.

Has anyone here ever lived in, or visited, one of the outports in rural Newfoundland? Trust me, the locals know it's brutal. It's also deadly. You won't find a sealer who doesn't know someone who drowned. The reason people do this is the same as the reason that people do any other rotten job - money. When you earn less than $10,000 a year (that includes sealing income), have no savings to allow you to move elsewhere and have few other skills that would let you get a job, this no longer looks so bad.
Don't get me wrong - other than using it as a conservation measure (let's face it, humans have utterly screwed up the ecosystems up there and not all intervention is self serving and short sighted), I'm not in favour of the hunt. All the same, many of the people posting here seem to have little idea what it's like.
PS Galen, the reason why the pelts (and penises, for the Chinese market) are the only thing taken is that sealing is sufficiently poor that they'd have no way to make enough money to fill a boat with the complete carcass.
It's a rough life if you're one of those fishermen. "Good" news is that the outposts are turning to ghost towns so quickly that there are very few younger sealers, and less each year.

Canada's finest - taser murderers and now pirates.

The East Coast fisheries collapsed due to humans over fishing. That simple.

The same thing is happening right now to the West Coast salmon fisheries in the US.

And by the by... the seals are slaughter SOLEY for their pelts. The meat is simply thrown overboard...

Kelmer,

I guess you still haven't been able to raise enough humanity to imagine what it is like to be trapped upside down in a fishing boat with ice cold water rushing in. How can you defend one type of animal, the seals, and then glory in the deaths of another type of animal, four fishermen who have families and friends. Sounds pretty hypocritical to me.

You would all do better to use some sense instead of just emotion when discussing this issue. This is a real world problem and it will take real work to solve it.

The North Atlantic fisheries have by and large collapsed. The reasons for the collapse are complicated and I don't entirely understand all of them, but they include: the lack of funding for the kind of scientific research that was needed to properly supervise the smaller inshore fishers and the larger corporate fishers, the government officials turning a blind eye to the smaller inshore fishers who were sounding warnings well before the collapse happened, and the greed of the larger corporate fishers with their giant bottom trawlers that vacuumed up every living thing they came in contact with.

The smaller inshore fishers fished for centuries and never depleted the fish stocks. They could have fished for centuries more. They had a sustainable fishery, which did include sealing. They fished in areas which were close to where they lived and they took care of these areas because their futures depended on them. When the fisheries were opened up to the larger trawlers, all that changed. These problems are not found in Canada alone:

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-5167754201014261871&q=fishery+collapse&total=7&start=0&num=10&...

I might suggest that Kelmer and the rest of you who are attacking Canada look to your own fisheries.

In any case, for the small inshore fishers who still remain in these areas, the seal hunt is one way to bring in a little money. Nobody is getting rich and, as we have seen this year, it is not unusual for somebody to die at the hunt. I can't believe that anyone who had an alternative income would go sealing. I can't believe their wives would let them go sealing if there was another choice. One of the widows of the four men who died this year lost her first husband at sea as well.

Best wishes,

These murderers go into the nurseries where the babies are and it then becomes The Silence of the Lambs, spilling much blood. What kind if an uncaring world have we become.
You immoral monsters.
Your souls are dead and gone and that alos applys to those who agree with this horrific slaughter.

Go Vegan!

If seal pups looked like spiders, not a one of you angry about the hunt would give a good god-damn about them.

Mark (the vegan) said: "...species are going to get wiped out one way or the another."

This seems to be true for any one of many reasons. One (doing some lumping) is the pressure of 'developing' countries which have zero ethics for restraint. Their ability to get out there and reap is increasing rapidly. Here in Vietnam we have a 'get-it-before-someone-else-does mentality, shrinking resources go up in value intensifying pressure, the very poor are just surviving, the newly rich are delighted to get very, very rich due to the open door of corruption, and there's an ethics that includes respect (from family, friends, neighbors, citizens) for anyone who has lots of money, no matter how it was gotten. If you don't but they do, what's the end result? The int'l non-profits are racing to 'educate the masses' while the masses are racing to get better equipment to harvest more before the next guy gets it, or the local environment gets too polluted/eroded/depleted to continue to do 'it'. It's looking more and more like a horse race.

This seal situation is so headline/in focus. But it is totally controlled. There is no danger here. It is gruesome, bloody and offensive to many (including me). But this seal kill does not represent how this planet is being brought down.

Cornelisson and Hammarstedt were busted for observing without a license?!?! What the...?

OK, so let's take this to the next step: anti-ecotourism. You can charter voyages on cruise ships lined with coin-operated binoculars, and for a pretty penny for the fare, the Fisheries Department can rake in enough lucre to mount genuine conservation efforts for the seals and cod and whatever.

Drop the price of an "observation license" so everybody can "get on board." Hell, send a Fox film crew out there and let the event compete with American Idol. Hold contests where the prize is to actually accompany the "hunters" with the grand prize being able to smile for the cameras while bopping a seal to near-death! Doesn't this sound like a fantastic opportunity, Fisheries Department?

Or...wait...maybe I'm wrong about this observation license. Maybe it has more in common with refusing to allow the observation of unloading coffins of service members killed in Iraq.

Why is it called a hunt?
How can it be a hunt when dimwitted men can move up close enough to some newborn seal pup, that has never seen a man before, and beat its brains out with an iron bar? Now, a hunt would be if the same man put on scuba gear and went hunting, underwater, for a fully grown tiger seal.. Now that would be a real hunt.. That I would pay money to see.. Not so easy for the human though..

To Mark..(@April 14th, 2008 12:51 am)
What you seem to believe is that all species must fall by the wayside for the benefit of mankind. What you fail to realise is that as they fall, so too will we. It is really as simple as that.
This sort of protest is as much about changing attitudes to the rapacious plundering of our only planetary home as it is to allowing other organisms to live and die in their own way..
Every seal pup that dies is just another tiny part of the pattern of behaviour that will see the human race spiral down to a well deserved extinction. The planet will go on, other life will evolve to fill the many niches that we have cleared out. Perhaps the next time, the dominant species will have a greater understanding of it's place in the "scheme of things"

Eccellent, get the watson gang into jail. I like it.
What the f...is the worry about a few predators being killed? They eat the fish, we eat the fish, so we control their population. No problem here.

I remember when watson came up here to act against the wolf hunt...he was leaving quite soon...

And yes - I hunt for food, and I like rabbits - in my stew pot, not on my lawn.
Seals are like crows, coyotes and coons in the city - opportunists, that procreate like the same mentioned when times are good.

Harper is a Bush wannabe. What he thinks he will gain by being a bloody bastard is beyond me. Once again we have an example of the underdeveloped in a leadership position. This moral spiritual intellectual midget has brought Canada into the fold of neocon greed and brutality at the expense of what is real; Earth, life, love. I love Canada and have many dear friends there. It is sad to see Canada go the way of the US.

to all the seal hunt bashers and canadian slaggers: you know what is sad and hilarious? how much hate gets spread discussing things like this. all of the knee-jerk reactions and shouting wild negativity. take a good look around: this is a finite planet and species are going to get wiped out one way or another. Morals and ethics are something we've made up. All the longing for some kind of disneyland world where tigers and bears and sharks and seals and mice and rats and insects and bacteria are living in harmony is so laughable it boarders on insane.

mind your own consumptive habits and knock it off with the bullshit moral imperialism.

oh I know there's going to be a ton of inane responses (which I won't waste my time reading - there's a world out there that needs living in) and slagging of this post and possibly me as a human for voicing these ideas, but i'm a fucking vegan and i'm telling you: you're not helping.

you'd have your hands full looking after your own ass and all the negative shit you do that you don't take time to notice because you're far too busy criticizing others.

leave the sealers alone and take a good LONG look at your own patterns.

That's it I'm out.

What makes the killing of seals any different than the slaughter houses full of pigs, and chickens and cows?

People differ in what they consider to be meat, that's all.

For the record, I have never eaten rabbit. My dad's mother got a bunch of rabbits, which she was fattening up for food, but which my dad thought were pets. My dad refused to eat the rabbits and we never ate rabbit as children.

Some people hunt and eat rabbits for food (or even just to keep them away from their gardens and fields).

Some people think that dogs are pets and others think of them as meat.

Some people step on snakes because they don't like them. They kill them on purpose with no intention of even eating them or using their skins.

Manitoba Hydro employees volunteered their time to built tunnels under roads so that the Narcisse snakes could get to the other side without becoming road kill. It worked - the Narcisse snakes are actually using the tunnels!

This is just one of the ways humans differ. I don't eat or hunt seal, but I do enjoy the odd hamburger and hotdog and taquitto etc.

Torturing animals (or humans, for that matter) is always wrong. But most of us have all eaten too much meat in our lives to consider the killing of all animals as wrong - so this strikes me a bit like picking and choosing.

RE: - What I am saying is this: if people like you stop exploiting and killing animals for your benefit in disregard of the interests of animals in being alive and happy

Mmmooo - At least you are not picking and choosing but consider the slaughter of all animals for food equally wrong.

Concede that there is some correlation between the way we treat animals and the way we treat other

It is necessary for Canadian Maritimers to kill the seals now because under Canadian government supervision they decimated one of the worlds largest fisheries. If seals eat some of the very few cod left their recovery will remain stalled. It has been over 16 years since cod fishing was banned (because there was only 3 million pounds of cod biomass left)and they have not recovered. For over over 400 years this fish was exploited and for the last 100 years over 500 million pounds per year were caught. The guys that managed and even funded this destruction now want to reduce anything catching cod so their 'recovery' efforts look better than dismal. Not much has changed with the Canadian Department of Fisheries (DFO), they are also busy destroying the remaining salmon stocks on the west coast by promoting farmed salmon over the wild fish. For the DFO this has always been about keeping their buddies in the various fisheries happy and to hell with the environment.

"Fishermen sell seal pelts mostly to the fashion industry in Norway, Russia and China, as well as blubber for oil. The United States has banned Canadian seal products since 1972."

There lies the problem: despite USA and EU bans on imports of the product, there is sadly still a market for the seal skins.

The solutions:
(1) massive public pressure from Canadian voters to ban the hunt
(2) voluntary consumer boycotts against all Canadian produce (damn, I like pure maple syrup)
(3) official diplomatic pressure from other countries
(4) financial or other sponsorship of Sea Shepherd and other ethic-driven organisations (animal welfare and to a lesser extent environmental activist organisations)

PS: Good Luck if you don't think seals are worth saving from human cruelty, think about this. The kind of thing you are complaining about seems to be about the inhumanity and selfishness of particular humans against others. If we retrain ourselves as a species to consider the feelings of seals, and animals, then it tends to condition us to considering the feelings of others generally.

What I am saying is this: if people like you stop exploiting and killing animals for your benefit in disregard of the interests of animals in being alive and happy (like chickens because you regard them as tasty, despite the fact that chickens want to live happily just like you do) then you might find that people who live in Israel, Palestine, USA and wherever will just treat each other well, and these ridiculous border and sovereignty disputes won't even matter.

The coward at the end of the day is the one who is so self-absorbed with their nationalist identity, that they are unable to exist as a loving individual nurturing with generousity those around them instead of as a member of a tribe of warriors determined to seek revenge for past wounds and insults.

RE: This is all about a Federal Conservative Government trying to drum up support for itself among Newfoundlanders who are pissed off with the Feds, especially with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

There is a certain amount of truth to that. I also see Harper captitalizing on the Breast Cancer scandal.

But it leaves the question, why is the seal hunt so popular with the Newfoundlanders and Labradorians?

Think of it, would Danny Williams be the poster boy for the seal hunt if the people of NL found the seal hunt as repulsive as many of the readers on this board?

Some of these seal hunters had fathers and grandfathers who also hunted seal so it seems normal to them.

RE: Didn't the cod disappearance teach our fisheries anything?

It taught our politicians to set quotas and limit the season so that even the seal hunters feel as if they are being ecological.

Don't seals eat cod? I think they eat other things too, but the seal hunters will focus on the fact that they eat cod.

RE: Canada is slowly changing into an uncaring, self-interested populace who cares more for business interests than for the way business is being done.

Protect, the seal hunt existed when we were both more caring and less caring people than we are today.

Speaking of phoques being slaughtered, heard the latest about Omar Khadr. The Yanks were throwing grenades. At the most, it means that someone may have thrown the grenade which landed in the house Khadr was in out as self defense (so they themselves would not be blown sky high) and at the least it may mean that this was just another instance of American friendly fire.

I guess Canadains would get off the hook if they murders Palistinians or Iragi children. You get all fired up about seals pups ( good eating to taste like salty chicken ) and allow the USA and Isreal to murder humans? Sheep that is the US of A is sheep and 911 showed the world that. Always pointing your finger outwards but never inward. Please do something you cowards

Watched from my car as the Canadian Coast Guard escorted Watson's ship, the Farley Mowat, to a wharf at noon today. Two large Coast Guard ships and a RCMP cutter to push a run-down, rusty old bucket to a deserted mooring crawling with Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans personnel and police.

This is all about a Federal Conservative Government trying to drum up support for itself among Newfoundlanders who are pissed off with the Feds, especially with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

Watson is pretty unpolished in how he presents himself to the local media, but his efforts to protect wildlife are commendable. The Canadian Federal Government with which he has locked horns is led by Stephen Harper, a former oil-industry exec. who takes his marching orders from Bush and co. Harper had pushed to have Canada join in the invasion of Iraq back when he was opposition leader. Expect this to be a dirty and drawn-out mess.

Unfortunately, the press takes Patrick Watson's comments out of context and makes him sound cavalier about human deaths. The Coast Guard did not tow a sealer ship properly, causing deaths, so the press manages to divert this tragedy by focussing on the Sea Shepherd.

Canada is slowly changing into an uncaring, self-interested populace who cares more for business interests than for the way business is being done.

Get rid of the mass seal kill.
Didn't the cod disappearance teach our fisheries anything?

We will stop these horrific murderers someday.
This has to stop....
The bastards.

Don't use a diabold money machine to make a contribution...just saying.

Might as well give you what we are being told - see what you think when you hear it:

(check video, comments and related stories on your right)

Seizure not a win for seal hunt opponents: minister

Hearn said the vessel was in "Canadian territorial waters" but didn't say if it was within 12 nautical miles (19.2 kilometres) of the coastline. The minister has also said the Fisheries Act gave him the leeway to act outside the 12-mile limit.

The arrests were necessary to prevent future danger to sealers, fisheries officers and observers, he said.

Meanwhile, two officers of the Farley Mowat made a brief court appearance this morning.

The captain and first officer were arrested when Canadian Coast Guard and RCMP officers boarded the vessel in the Cabot Strait between Newfoundland and Cape Breton.

Captain Alexander Cornelissen and First Officer Peter Hammarstedt are alleged to have broken rules that prohibit anyone from coming within 900 metres of the hunt unless they have an observer's permit.

Cornelissen has also been charged under the Fisheries Act with obstruction or hindrance of a Fishery Officer or inspector.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080413/farley_mowat_080413/20080413?hub=Canada

Anti-sealing activists appear in court

The captain and first officer of the anti-sealing ship the Farley Mowat appeared in court in Sydney, N.S., on Sunday, a day after their arrest off the west coast of Newfoundland.

They have been charged with interfering with the seal hunt after a confrontation with a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker two weeks ago.

Their vessel was boarded and seized Saturday in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by RCMP officers, working with officials from the federal Fisheries Department and the coast guard, who have been monitoring the hunt.

A few dozen people gathered along the waterfront in Sydney Sunday morning to catch a glimpse of the anti-sealing vessel as it was towed into harbour by a coast guard icebreaker.

Paul Watson of the international group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which owns the vessel, said its seizure and the arrests amount to an "act of war" because the ship is registered in the Netherlands and was in international waters.

However, Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn said the arrests were made within Canadian waters. At a news conference after the raid, he told reporters the officers had stopped "a bunch of money-sucking manipulators" from interfering with the hunt.

Hearn said the ship's crew failed to comply with warnings and continued to violate marine and fisheries regulations.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/04/13/seal-arrests.html

(for video on your right)

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2008/04/12/seal-hunt.html

There will be no end to some mens greed. Perhaps Mother Nature is working on a payback for these individuals and governments. At the microscopic level.

Stephen Harper, he's our man!
If he can't lead the slaughter of and endangered species,
No one can!

The Canadian Government is allied with the largest Seal Slaughter in the history of the planet. Their animal rights record is in line with their record of clear cutting forests and destroying all the natural habitat in the way. Its a complete Greed, and Power driven Disaster.

Greed, Power, Politics, are not new to Canada Either.

Lets pray for a more sensible balance between, nature and man, if either one of us is to survive.

Here is how to stop this outrage:
European Union ban the import of seal products!

The Canadian government is scum. At least it started with four sealers going down to Davy Jones locker.

Paul Watson is a true Canadian hero. One of the only environmentalists who treats these subjects seriously. He doesnt play the human supremacist game.
That reminds me--have to send off that Sea Shepherd donation...