Seal hunting, clubbed, pickaxed, shot or otherwise

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

In our Last Post thread Aggie made the following post related with clubbing baby seals:

I think it has more to do with commercial viability, actually.

I'm not actually much of a supporter of the hunt, but bristle at the misinformation presented by protesters and how much of the protests are based on 'cute factor'. 

Last _{why is it morally more or less acceptable to kill anything based on age? why is a hakapik to kill a seal worse than a bolt gun to kill a cow?} Post

So, who's ready for a debate and who wants to defend the hunt?

[ivor]

Hmmm....  I think I'd rather be clubbed.

[Griffin NoName]

I vote for a short sharp knock to the very young and very old (they are a drain on resources).

[Aggie]

I'd rather go club the protesters.

I personally don't think the hunt is unsustainable in terms of numbers in its current form, nor do I think the approved methods employed are unsuitably cruel or barbaric (compared to standard methods of slaughtering livestock).  It's worth noting that correct use of the hakapik has been declared a humane method of slaughter in several reports by veterinary groups.

Footage does exist of not-dead seals being skinned alive and suffering horribly.  As observers are permitted at the hunts, I would suggest that (if not already applicable) significant penalties be put in place for sealers who are conducting this sort of behaviour, including fines and loss of licence, right up to incarceration (current animal cruelty laws could cover the latter, but some industry-specific legislation hitting the livelihood of the offender should apply if not already in place).


I won't go as far as to defend the modern hunt, because it's purely an economic exercise and there's otherwise no actual need for it, as far as I can tell.  I support traditional harvest of seals (even using modern methods) by indigenous people where the meat is being used as a primary food source; the sale as a by-product of pelts does not bother me in the case of such harvests. 


I'm also curious as to how many seals (and other marine mammals) are killed as by-catch from modern fishing techniques (and completely wasted), compared to this harvest.  I'll take a smashed-in skull over drowning in a net or on the end of a long-line any day.


To be clear, we are not talking about those cute little white newborn baby seals here, the ones that are being clubbed are moulting and less cute, and they are older (12 - 14 days, OK, it's a baby ).   I do have a strong level of resentment at the use of the cute-factor (especially photos of whitecoats) in protests against seal hunting and the semi-informed celebrity involvement.  While many of the high-profile protesters are vegetarian or vegan, for the general public I'd say that if you are eating factory-farmed meat, you have little basis for pointing to this as an egregious example of animal cruelty.  The ageism also sickens me; why is a life more valuable at 14 days than one year (some countries restrict killing to older harp seals, which can't be conducted in the same way)?


Bit of a moot point this year, as poor ice conditions ensured that more pups drowned before they were able to swim than were clubbed to death.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I vote for a short sharp knock to the very young and very old (they are a drain on resources).

Wasn't that what the Modest Proposal was all about?
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IMO the thing with baby seals is that hunting them in the XXI century seems only appropriate for polar bears and orcas rather than people. Even the cultural defense is weak if you think that seals are significantly more intelligent than chickens or cows, also modern slaughter houses are quite efficient at the time of the actual kill.

So unless the hunters are in the same condition as natural predators -that is, either hunt or die of starvation- I have a very hard time finding it morally acceptable.

The methods for killing the animals leave a lot of room for cruelty, which is perhaps why I associate it with traditional Spanish bullfights (even if it isn't necessarily so).
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It doesn't help either that I was on the seaquarium yesterday watching seals doing tricks.

[Aggie]

I've seen a bullfight (in Mexico - thanks Dad!) and those things sicken me.  It's not sporting and it's intentionally torturing the bull with no hope of the bull ever winning.  Even cockfights look rosy in comparison (not that I'm defending them, although I've been on multi-day ferry rides in the Philippines where the neighbour's fighting cock was served better food than I was  ), at least the roosters have somewhat equal chances of winning.   Rodeo is a little more debatable; some events (calf roping) look very rough on the animals, but the rodeo kind of "bull fighting" is worse on the cowboy. 

I digress. Seals, as carnivores, are undoubtedly more intelligent than cows or chickens, but aren't likely any more intelligent than pigs. I agree that there's a lot of room for cruelty in the methods if a sealer is incompetent or sadistic, but that is minor compared to what an unsupervised arse-drunk sport hunter is capable of inflicting.    There's little motivation to not have a clean kill, IMHO - animals are tricky enough to skin when they are still, let alone still wiggling!

Many of the sealers in Canada are fishermen the rest of the year, and sealing does provide up to a third of these folks' income - very approximately what the average North American spends on food.  So I suppose you could say they'd starve without it, although that's not strictly true.  You may wish to consider the fact that most Newfoundlanders who can't make enough money at home are working in the oilsands of Northern Alberta; we'll leave that one alone for now.


Again, I am not an outright supporter of the hunt, but dislike the pressure it's come under on a strictly emotional basis.  I am well aware that the Canadian DFO does not always do a proper job of using science to regulate fisheries (as this is considered), and would be open to a proper science-based argument based on the non-sustainability of the hunt, if applicable.  Otherwise, I see the criticism of this hunt being largely due to classist* bias compared to other 'fisheries'**. 

<sub>*in the biological sense

**I have been trying to come up with a comparable land-based commercial harvest of wild mammals, or even of birds these days, and coming up short</sub>

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

There are so much there I don't know where to start.

Are we talking about the differences between sport hunting and economic hunting? Personally I find sport hunting disgusting in almost all cases (invasive species may require culling but the methodology is usually abysmal). If we talk about economic hunting then fishing is the name, and there I'm morally opposed to whaling and find tuna fishing stupid (the species are collapsing) and deep sea sport fishing disgusting. The more I know how trawlers work the less I like it, it's extremely destructive and every day less and less sustainable, perhaps with the exception of salmon in Alaska.

So not only I'm opposed to economic hunting of seals, but economic and deep sea sport fishing, IOW I don't find hunting bears or fishing tuna a justification for hunting seals.

So, on it's own, and again with the exception of survival* hunt, what other justification is there?

*I mean, it's the seal or me, it's the only protein available, there is no other source, nobody will help me (the state, family or otherwise), as opposed to a fisher/hunter having to stop paying for his flat screen TV and may have to consider other occupation.

[Aggie]

So not only I'm opposed to economic hunting of seals, but economic and deep sea sport fishing, IOW I don't find hunting bears or fishing tuna a justification for hunting seals.

You have not cognitive dissonance here, your priorities are straight, IMHO. I don't disagree with your argument. 

My point is mostly that there are more important things to protest than this hunt, in light of the amount of money and misinformation that gets poured into it.  That being said, I'm not an activist even for things that I do see as being a problem, so me condemning protesters is a bit weak, admittedly.

There are many environmentally destructive activities, even in North America, that are being carried out purely for the sake of driving the local economy.  I don't consider this particular one to be especially bad, and in fact consider factory farming to be much worse in terms of ecological destruction, local pollution, global emissions and animal cruelty. It's purely a case of terrible imagery - red blood on white snow in a wilderness setting, using a garden tool (essentially) to smash skulls instead of a high-tech bolt gun in a factory setting - that makes this a touch-point for criticism.

Personally, growing up in a sustenance-hunting family, I consider the former to be a lot more honest.  We wouldn't have starved without deer meat, but something else would have died in a slaughterhouse to compensate for it.  I probably ate venison 4 - 5 nights per week as a kid.  Our philosophy on hunting was to shoot clean and get it out of its misery ASAP, and while getting outside was a major part of the appeal (sport in the sense of outdoor activity), the killing was always straight-up opportunistic predation as opposed to 'sport'.  A nice pair of antlers is all well and good, but the only real difference between a big buck and a small one was the amount of meat, and that was a minimal consideration.  Everything I've seen indicates that deer populations are sustainably managed (actually on the increase in most places) and that hunting of certain tasty species is ecologically sound in Canada at its currently limited level.  Sport-killing is deplorable and should be banned IMHO, despite the not-inconsiderable contribution to northern economies by rich tourist hunters.

If I had to choose between running about in the bush, chasing does and doing what comes naturally until I was shot by a hunter, or being castrated, dehorned, branded and standing in my own sh*t being fattened up with unnaturally concocted industrial food for a date with the bolt-gun and the grinder....? 

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Sorry, quite a digression there....

OTOH, killing animals exclusively for fur is something I do not approve of and worthy of debate and/or protest.  However, the methods and so-called "economic necessities" are much more clear-cut in my mind with seal hunting than with fur trapping.  This still occurs throughout much of northern Canada (and likely Alaska), albeit on a small scale, and uses leg traps to catch fur-bearing animals (largely carnivores: wolves, foxes, lynxes, martins, coyotes, bears, wolverines, etc.) and let them die of exposure or dehydration unless the trapper gets around to shoot them first.  We are talking about hours to days of suffering with a leg in a steel trap as opposed to the 45-second average from first injury to death that a seal goes through.  Why is this not protested?  Because it happens in the back-woods and nobody sees it.  The role of fur-trapping is emphasized in Canadian history classes, but I'd wager that most city folk don't have a clue that it's still an ongoing pursuit.

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I suppose that's why I'm willing to play devil's advocate here. If the issue is the method of killing, I believe it to be reasonably humane if properly conducted.  If the issue is the fact of the killing (i.e. number of animal deaths), there are MUCH bigger fish to fry, and I do not consider the provision of cheap beef / chicken / pork to be a necessity on a continent with an obesity crises and rampant heart disease - better we divert some of the cropland used for animal feed to growing vegetarian alternatives and let the price of meat (and thereby fast-food) rise.  Many people in the US (and to some degree in Canada) are suffering malnutrition due to the unavailability of good, cheap, fresh produce, but lack of animal protein and fat is much less of an issue.  Is a seal-fur collar really any worse an example of conspicuous consumerism than a $5.49 KFC Double Down in the grand scheme of things?


If the issue is the conducting of morally distasteful activities for local economic gain, this is a foot-note compared to the amount of injustices committed against our fellow humans around the world.  Re: flat-screen TVs, the b'ys who are out sealing certainly aren't living in the McMansions that the millions of good employees greasing the wheels of globalist mega-corps in Cubicle Land are; it's just that the blood on their hands happens to be visible on the snow in front of them and not hidden in a sweatshop or chemical factory in a foreign land, or down a coal mine in West Virginia for that matter.  If it wasn't the difference between starving and not starving, but between whether your children could attend post-secondary education and get gainful employment outside of a dirty, dangerous and dying industry, where do you draw the line then?

_{but don't ask me, I just dig holes for petro-dollars.....}


PS - Zono, you are correct, however, in emphasizing that the presence of greater injustices does not eliminate the significance of lesser injustices.  I don't have any real defence of the commercial seal hunt beyond local economic gain; whether that is enough to justify the activity is a personal moral decision, but in light of the sorry history of Newfoundland's fishing industry I don't blame the sealers for wanting to continue the hunt.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I think that we agree for the most part, I guess my point (to complement your final assessment) is that perhaps the other injustices deserve more public attention, which doesn't necessarily has to go in detriment of this one in particular.

As for the meat industries it becomes a point of contention, perhaps because the life of the animal is so bad but it's death is quick, while in a hunt the death is liable not to be, and given that we are talking about pups, a few weeks don't make a particularly compelling case for a quality life either.

I have no problem with sustenance hunting, provided it is done properly, sustainably and humanely. I still have trouble thinking on whaling even in the traditional scenarios because the more I know about cetaceans in particular and intelligent animals in general, the more I think that the Modest Proposal is as valid*. If I'm willing to kill and eat an animal whose feelings are likely similar just because they don't have buildings or guns (we even kill the ones that look like us) then what is the difference eating other people**?

*if not more, in that sense we are a plague while many hunted species are endangered.

**perhaps I should open an Anthropomorphic vs Anthropocentric debate too.