Money Shot

Well here it is. Exactly what I thought it would look like. It certainly makes me not want to eat seals anymore.

I had a comment yesterday left on my post about this issue which said:

Joan, you're being really bitchy, you're playing into the hands of animal abusers by saying the HSUS has no right to take issue with this, because however they make their money they ARE putting it to good use. Of course they go where they're going to have attention paid to them. And then they take that money and put it to use where it can be most effective. Compare the pockets of the people employed by HSUS and other humane education orgs, to say, lobbyists for the animal flesh and pelt trade in Canada? Bet there's QUITE a discrepancy. Meanwhile Canada's cruelty laws are still over 100 years old, and they aren't going to be changing over the next four years, that's for sure!

The thing I have to say about this is that the Humane Society of the United States is like a lot of large corporations - they have their fingers into a lot of different issues. The HSUS did amazing things with the Katrina disaster, they do amazing things with homeless dogs, with humane education, with vegetarianism, with the ideas about companion animals and senior citizens - I totally respect Wayne Pacelle. I just think that when it comes to the sealing industry that they are completely wrong. The people running that wing of the organization have a different agenda and it's not an agenda that is correct and it's a blight on the rest of the HSUS corporation. It's as simple as that.

I have said this before ad nauseum on this blog but I'll say it again here what I think about the sealing industry - I think it's as wrong as any other inhumane abattoire - but the fact is that it's an abattoire without walls and that's the only difference. And that's why it's so easy to attack by humane organizations and why it's such a successful (and easy) money maker for them. You can't hide the blood out on the ice floes - you can't shut the press out, or get your security to run the people away out on the ice floes. The people doing the killing are just simple fishermen - not high powered corporations, like the huge farming operations where the million pig farms are becoming.

And because of that they are an easy target - and a way for these people to ask for your money. And in a couple weeks - or sooner - you are going to get the above picture in an email from Rebecca Aldworth asking you for money to end the barbaric seal hunt. I could use some money too. Why don't you send half to her and half to me. Buttercup needs a new pair of shoes.

For an example of what I consider to be Paul McCartney's complete misinformation on the whole business of this story - here's today's Chronicle Herald story that was in the paper today:

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/487760.html

Seal hunt "stain’ on Canada

Superstar McCartneys pose with whitecoats on ice floes; Fisheries officials defend cull, saying population has tripled
By CHRIS MORRIS The Canadian Press

GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE — The annual seal hunt off the East Coast is a "stain on the character of the Canadian people," music legend Paul McCartney said Thursday as he and his wife Heather staged a high-profile, anti-hunt protest on barren ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The megastar couple called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to end the centuries-old commercial slaughter by buying back hunters’ licences and promoting eco-tourism instead.

"We don’t want to see the local people suffer," McCartney said after the couple laid on their bellies to get a close-up look at newborn harp seals on an ice pan about 20 kilometres northwest of Iles de la Madeleine.

"But, from what we hear, it is quite a small amount of their annual revenue and this could be easily sorted out by the Canadian government, if they care to do it."

The McCartneys travelled by small plane from Charlottetown to Iles de la Madeleine, 160 kilometres northeast of Prince Edward Island. They then flew by helicopter to the ice floes.

Dressed in bright orange survival suits to ward off the bitter cold, the 63-year-old former Beatle and his wife posed for photos with snow-white pups as a media entourage of about 20 reporters and photographers looked on.

"We’re calling upon Stephen Harper and the government to consider looking at this problem . . . in the light of the international objections," McCartney said.

"Canada is known as a great nation . . . But this is something that leaves a stain on the character of the Canadian people and we don’t think that’s right. I don’t think the vast amount of Canadians think that’s right."

The date for the start of this year’s hunt has yet to be set, though it usually begins in late March. The 2006 quota is also under review.

McCartney cooed and spoke softly as he came almost nose to nose with bawling pups on the frozen expanse.

Nearby, worried mother seals peered anxiously from open water, clearly frightened by the people who so desperately want to be their saviours.

"These are such beautiful animals and in about three weeks from now this whole place will be a sea of red and these pups we are seeing today will be dead just for their fur," a genuinely upset McCartney told reporters.

"It’s something that shouldn’t be happening in this day and age."

Jean-Claude Lapierre of the sealers association on Iles de la Madeleine said the hunt will go ahead as planned.

"These people don’t understand what the hunt means to us," Lapierre said at the local airport where he greeted McCartney but didn’t get an opportunity to debate the issue.

"It’s an important part of our lives."

The most recent figures suggest the industry, which started in the 1700s, was worth between $15 million and $20 million annually and employed up to 10,000 people, most of them in Newfoundland. Supporters argue that income from the harvest is vital to remote communities with few economic opportunities.

The McCartneys, longtime animal rights activists, noted the Canadian government had approved a three-year management plan in 2003 that set the total quota for harp seals at 975,000 — a move that prompted renewed outrage among conservation groups.

Phil Jenkins, a spokesman for the federal Fisheries Department, said he took the opportunity to make Ottawa’s case directly to McCartney when he spoke with him during a flight into Charlottetown on Wednesday night.

"Sir Paul McCartney said that he had heard that the seal population was declining and there was a conservation issue," Jenkins said.

"In fact, the seal population is at 5.8 million animals and that’s about triple what is was in the 1970s."

Jenkins said he was concerned by the McCartneys’ decision to pose with the youngest harp seals, known as whitecoats, because hunters have been banned from killing them since 1987.

By law, harp seals must not be killed until they lose their white fur. That can happen in as little as 12 days, but most of the seals taken are about 25 days old, the Fisheries Department says.

Thursday’s protest was organized by the Humane Society of the United States and the British-based group, Respect for Animals.

Earlier, the McCartneys released a statement describing the hunt as brutal, and they cited a 2001 independent veterinarian report that concluded close to half of the seals killed were likely still conscious when skinned.

The Fisheries Department says it has an independent report that suggests otherwise. "Sometimes a seal may appear to be moving after it has been killed; however seals have a swimming reflex that is active — even after death," the department’s website says.

"This reflex gives the false impression that the animal is still alive when it is clearly dead."

Category: [Sealing]