I was completely oblivious to this current subject, but after hearing Drexler's comment about "clubbing baby seals" I decided to post this video. Not sure it has been posted or not, but this just made me cringe. <embed width="320" height="240" src="http://www.spike.com/efp" quality="high" bgcolor="000000" name="efp" align="middle" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="flvbaseclip=2667866" allowfullscreen="true"> </embed> <div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px; background-color: #000; width: 448px; padding: 3px 0; color: #fff;"><a href="http://www.spike.com/video/clubbing-baby-seals/2667866" style="color: #ffcc35; margin-left: 5px;">Clubbing Baby Seals</a> | <a href="http://www.spike.com/channel/viralvideo" style="color: #ffcc35">Viral</a> | <a href="http://www.spike.com/" style="color: #ffcc35">SPIKE.com</a></div>
That was cruel. But hearing PETA react and whine (and likely sue) like an 8 year old (with LOTS of money) will be funny-and annoying.
Okay, I'm a supporter of the seal hunt and here's what I feel: 1. People are only outraged about this because seals are cute. You don't hear anything about the underground parrot trade, for example, where birds are crammed together into suitcases for transport with only a 1 in 10 survival rate, or something crazy like that. 2. It's really not that cruel, honestly. You may think it looks barbaric, but for the most part, the clubbing is a quick and humane way of killing the animals. Aside from that one "coughing" seal in the video (and it never did show what happened to make it that way) all the animals in the video stopped moving after one or two clubs to the head. I have worked in the poultry processing industry, and I have to tell you I would take the life (and death) of a fur seal over that of a farmed chicken any day of the week. 3. How is killing a baby seal any different from killing an adult seal? A life is a life. As long as the hunt is sustainable and killing the young ones does not threaten the overall population, I have no problem with this. It's just the cuteness factor of killing the young ones that people get upset about. To me, it's all the same and a life is a life. I don't value the life of a young seal any higher than the life of a healthy adult seal. 4. It has been theorized that the large seal population might be somewhat responsible for the decline in the northern cod stocks. There are differing expert opinions on whether or not this is true, but if it is, then abolishing the seal hunt could have a dramatic effect on the cod population and affect the livelihood of fishermen. ** Now, having said all that, I do not actually support the fur trade in general. Everything I said above is predicated on the fact that the meat from the seals gets used and does not go to waste. If a seal hunter discards the carcass upon obtaining the fur, then no, I do not endorse that at all. However, from what I know, the meat does get used. People eat it (I have eaten seal meat on many occasions and enjoy it tremendously), and the meat is used to make farm animal feed and pet food. The blubber is transformed into oil.
They are killed for their fur, not sport. They are killed by clubbing so the fur will not be ruined. It upsets you because you grew up watching Walt Disney movies.
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Somebody should club them with a stick and see how many hits it takes for them to stop moving. Bastards.....
Well, it looks sick and disgusting but I don't expect it to look pretty when anything gets killed. As long as i'm still eating meat or wearing leather, I don't see how i can complain about this.
i can't watch that after the first few seconds. i'm utterly repulsed and horrified by that practice. i'm obviously not big on hunting animals (even though i enjoy fish), but there must be a kinder way to go about this. you know how there are tranquilizer darts? why can't they get darts with lethal poison and shoot them with that? it seems like it'd be much more peaceful and humane.
It's probably more cost effective. The cost of guns + darts + poison for all the hunters probably adds up. A stick is cheap. Plus, people do eat the meat so I'm not sure you want to be injecting poison into something you're going to have for dinner.
I'm against killing animals for sport and food...but I definitely agree with fadeaway on one of his points. A lot of people are bothered by seal clubbing but turn a blind eye to the horrors that occur in America's slaughterhouses. Those seals die a lot quicker than calves tortured for veal, or pigs, chickens and cows skinned and quartered while still alive. Oh well. PETA, being the in-your-face joke they are, will always represent vegetarians, unfortunately.
