Harp Seal Cull

(Photo credit: Hicker Photo)

The planet is full of murderers. Japan kills hundreds of whales with excuses ranging from scientific research to it being a part of their culture. Canada kills thousands of harp seals because their rural communities need the money and because they, too, call it tradition and part of their culture. What a bunch of blathering horse poop.

Color me stupid, but in today's technological age, there are literally thousands of ways one can make money from anywhere on the planet without having to club a seal pup to death.

Sea Shepherd is currently on it's way to Canada to attempt intervention on this years harp seal cull. Canada has set their quota this year to be around the 275,000 mark, with most of the seal pups being under 3 months of age.

Canadian Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Loyola Hearn says:

"Canada's seal hunt is humane, sustainable and responsible," the minister said. "A number of independent reports have supported this over the years, including the recent European Food Safety Authority report on the animal welfare aspects of global seal hunts."

How would Mr. Hearn feel if someone stood over him with a club and bashed his head in, all the while saying to him over and over "Killing you is humane, sustainable, and responsible."

People like this make me sick.

(Photo credit: Humane Society)

Canada has ordered Sea Shepherd to stay away from the seal hunt or face prosecution under Canadian Law.

Paul Watson states that he complies within the law and has the right of passage.

Just like there has been no scientific evidence that proves the Japan whalers are indeed killing whales for this purpose, the same applies to the killing of harp seals.

Excerpt:

In its examination of Canada's commercial seal hunt, the European Food Safety Authority scientists found that:

• there is strong evidence that, in practice, effective killing does not always occur
• there is evidence that, during Canada's commercial seal hunt, animals suffer pain and distress
• sealers often do not comply with the Canadian regulations in relation to manually checking the skull or administering a blinking reflex test
• in contrast to current practice, attempts to kill seals should not be made where the seal does not pose a stable target or the sealer may be unbalanced, such as on shifting ice floes
• seal hunts should be opened up to independent inspections without undue interference

The European Food Safety Authority, EFSA, concludes that seals should be recognized as sentient marine mammals that can experience pain, distress, fear, and other forms of suffering - not fish, as they are classified in Canada. It also recommends that seals should be protected from killing and skinning practices that cause them pain, distress, and avoidable suffering.

At least there are a growing number of countries who are protesting this culling and have created national bans on seal products. These currently include Belgium and the Netherlands and countries strongly considering this include Germany, Italy, and Austria.

While the hunt begins this Friday, there are delegates from Canada heading to Europe to lobby for their seal hunting industry. Canada could soon face sanctions on this from 27 nations.

I say sanction them up the butt and do it fast.

Meanwhile, let your voices be heard by sending a message to Canada's Minister of International Trade, David Emerson, below:

Take Action against the Canadian Harp Seal Cull

Mahalo,

Dolphin

Whaling, Clubbing, and Politics

(Artist credit: Jeff Wilkie)

Here's a good article about Japan Whaling. Read here: Japan's Whaling Shame

IMO, their argument that it's about culture is BS. And it sure isn't about meat considering maybe 1% of Japan's population even eats whale meat. And it's not about science. Science isn't about killing 1,000 whales to do research on.

Please continue to make your voices heard on this outrage.

Incidentally, I abhor any torture or needless killing of animals. Our own country does it to cows, pigs, chickens, etc. And it's not about being hypocritical. Meaning, "..it's okay for us to kill cows, etal but not okay for another country to kill whales or dolphins." Whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals are in danger of being either more endangered than they are now or extinct.

Many people fail to see that.

The Japanese fleet has been underway for two weeks now. We know that Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace have also been underway in hopes of intercepting and interfering with the slaughter of these mammals.

Hopefully we will be hearing further updates soon.

It amazes me that there are sites out there that support, endorse, and encourage the slaughter of our marine mammals. I've seen websites about the killing of whales, dolphins, orcas, etc and the clubbing of seals, walrus, penguins. I won't even dignify mentioning these sites or linking to them, but they should be ashamed of themselves.

Anyone who takes such perverse pleasure in killing animals in such a way as to torture them, deserve to be tortured themselves. What is it with people getting joy out of harpooning a humpback whale and watching it suffer for 12 hours while it's in complete agony and finally dies? What is it about people who enjoy taking a club and whacking defenseless seals?

It literally makes me sick.

Speaking of being sick, if you have not heard about the Senate Bill HR 1959, then I strongly suggest that you run, not walk, to the following links and educate yourselves. If you want to bury your head in the sand, live in denial, and think there's no way in heck our government would do such a thing, then remember that a lot of people back in the time of Pre-Nazi Germany thought the same thing.

Senate Bill to criminalize thoughts, blogs, books and free speech across America

Contact your State Senators


Just do a search on your favorite search engine for "HR 1959" and see just how dangerous this legislation is.

Some are saying people speaking up about this are overreacting or being paranoid.

Some are saying that come January 2009 when the new President is supposed to take over, Bush and Cheney will enact Martial Law to extend their dictatorship of America indefinitely, and say they are defending us against terrorism. They are the terrorists.

What are you going to do? Believe it could never happen, or believe it is a possibility and speak up and take action? Simply for exercising your free speech rights, you could be labeled a terrorist according to Bush.

This is no conspiracy theory or some Oliver Stone movie. This is real and very possibly about to become even more real. I'd rather be thought of as a paranoid citizen speaking up against crap like this and end up being wrong, than to take absolutely no action, live in denial, and then have our worst fears realized.

This is a quote:

"The biggest joke of all is that this section also says that any measure to prevent violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism should not violate the constitutional rights of citizens. However, the definition of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as they are defined in section 899A are themselves unconstitutional. The Constitution does not allow the government to arrest people for thought crimes, so any promises not to violate the constitutional rights of citizens are already broken by their own definitions."

Will the country we save, be our own for a change?

Mahalo,

Dolphin