The Seal Hunt

Seals are a McCartny's best friend:

The Thought likes seals. But he also likes money. So does everybody else in the world, hence the reason the world we are in is so messed up. For the fisherman in northeastern Canada: Seal Hunting = Money.

Unlike the greedy soul devouring (seal devouring) fishermen however, many celebrities and other people aren't particularly fond of the seal hunt. Apparently killing cute things is inhumane. (The Thought realizes this is a particularly sarcastic comment, deal with it.) Thus, these anti-hunters protest.

The fight to stop the seal hunt is pretty intense, and very well orginized. Possibly more so than the movement to stop the war in Iraq. One such protest to stop the Hunt is a deadly anti-Canadian seafood boycott which is going on in many of America's restaurants. The boycott aims to strike a powerful blow to the Canadian fishing industry and convince them to ban the seal hunt. Unfortunately the people who run the boycott didn't really put a filter on who could join, thus a large amount of the boycott consists of restaurants that have never actually served Canadian fish. Or in the case of the many Vegan restaurants on the list pretty much boycott anything with meat in it anyway . This or course has all the earth shattering effect of a radio station promising to boycott television. Of course there are some restaurants who actually have changed their menu from Canadian fish to fish from some other place. Iceland maybe. But since the fishermen, (fisherpeople,) keep on killing seals quite clearly this isn't the solution to the problem.

Other ways the anti-sealers have been fighting the hunt is by yelling at the people involved, and just generally running after them, but not actually touching them. So far this has acheived a load of seal guts in the face of some protesters after an annoyed fisherman decided he had enough. Canadian Seal Hunt Begins - ABC

And of course since nothing can ever be done if a famous person isn't a part of it, a celebrity decided to show up and make a stand for the hunt. Paul McCartney, apparently, is against seal hunting. Not that big a surprise mind you since he finds the eating of any meat particularly disgusting. (The Thought, on the other hand, finds it particularly delicious.) Of course Sir Paul's appearance didn't really do anything either except get some news coverage, which in turn didn't do anything once again. What may have contributed to this lack of results is the fact that Sir Paul showed up a few weeks too early and then left for home, his big peice of action on opening day a video once again saying "killing seals is bad."

It seems to The Thought that right now a celebrity isn't happy unless he or she is complaining about something, which makes sense, since The Thought himself feels much the same way. Interestingly enough this is one of the first "rights abuses" that Canada has been called out on in ages. Yes siree, in Canada they have the Seal Hunt, in America they have Iraq and Guantanemo. Equal situations to be sure. Speaking of "equal," one thing that The Thought always wondered about was why celebrities like Sir Paul get so enraged at the thought of dead seal pups but not at the torture of hundreds of Iraqi prisoners. While The Thought believes in the animal rights movement he also believes that Paul's time would be much better spent frolicing on an ice floe with a Sunni than a seal. Maybe if the Iraqi prisoners had bigger puppy dog eyes it would be different. Or whatever.

An interesting thing The Thought notices is that besides the fact that the fisherman have taken to hurling seal parts at the protesters, (and the media, they don't play favourites!) they have generally remained much more civil than the protesters have. You see, one thing The Thought hates is rhetoric. The stuff is full of comments which are completely baseless. Like when certain annnoying right wingers cell evryone anti-American communists. Or the Liberal party makes an advertisement that says Stephen Harper wants to put troops in Canadian streets. Those things are stupid. The Thought currently can't find any of this rhetoric, but there's alot. He found some yesterday. Just do a search in google news or something like that. Those anti-sealers really like to spout off their mouths.


These people also seem to have trouble with their facts. For instance Harpseals.org maintains that once a seal has begun to moult it can be killed, which isn't true. Seals can only be killed when fully moulted. Some of their reasoning is a bit off too. The headline on Sealhunt.org maintains that "Greedy Sealers mislead the Inuit." And then the website goes on to say that they're cool with the Inuit seal hunt, just not the Canadian seal hunt. To The Thought, that doesn't really make sense, something killed is something killed, and thats that. Its not like the Inuit kill things that differently, except for the ones which hunt traditionally, and something tells me spears are much more tortureous than bullets. In The Thought's Thoughts, if the animal rights movement hates sealing, they should hate all sealing. Like that which goes on in Greenland, or Russia, or Norway, or maybe Nambia, they all have hunts too.

The thought also notes that a huge amount of people who protest the seal hunt seem to be American, which is interesting. It seems that America and Canada really seem to oppose each other alot. Check out this petition, chock full of Americans. In the last seventy entries there are only five Canadians. Seal Hunt Petition

Perhaps at least some of these people could consider protesting the treatment of animals in farms, I know chickens aren't cute but have you ever seen how they live before they die? Not so cool. Thats why The Thought buys free range chicken.

Now The Thought does realize the Canadian seal hunt does have problems, and that there are some people who break the law, but thats true in pretty much every case of animal harvesting. So as much as The Thought opposes the cruelty in the seal hunt, he doesn't think that a few bad apples should spoil the pie. Furthermore it is pretty obvious that the majority of the hunts are not cruel, since there have been about a billion Canadian and American studies independant of interests from either side which have come out saying that the hunt is at least as humane as other animal harvesting methods, if not more so.

The hunt is also generally considered part of a strong conservation principle. Seals are efficient at what they do, and thus currently almost number six million off the coast of Canada. The farming of them helps keep their numbers in balance with the rest of the farmed marine life. Though The Thought isn't claiming that the hunt is used to cull seal numbers for the purpose of relieving pressure on cod and other fish stocks. It isn't. The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans even says so. Woot.

So while the seal hunt may not be exactly the prettiest thing to watch, The Thought feels that if it helps keep some poor "greedy fisherman" in business and prevents fishing villages from shutting down then it really isn't that bad. Its not inhumane, and it helps the economy. What's so bad about that? Just because they're cute doesn't mean they deserve death any less than a cow does. And I think that Paul and Linda might just agree on that.

This has been the first of many Thoughts from The Thought. Stay tuned.

P.S. The Thought hopes nobody got too offended by this article. If you did, keep reading anyways, pretty soon The Thought we'll have to end up posting at least something you'll agree with.