And hence we come back to one of those arguments where both sides are wrong

Now, we all know why the seal hunters are wrong, they're clubbing baby seals to death, however, lets now look at the consequences for stopping the hunting

What you never hear about the previous situation with the seals is what happened afterwards

Without seal hunters, the seal population increased by a hell of a lot

Without being able to hunt seals, the local economy collapsed, forcing all of the people in that area to move away, leaving behind many derelict ghost towns

The increased seal population ate all the salmon, vastly reducing its population

Had this been allowed to continue, all of the seals the campeigners had "saved" would have starved to death in a manner far more horrid than being clubbed

The guvornment there (I forget exactly which country owns the area) knew something had to be done, and so employed people to go club the adult seals, from which there was no fur and no profit to be made, knowing that the campeigners only cared about the babies

And it payed off, because it was no longer cute little baby seals being clubbed, nobody cared

However, we use "payed off" as a loose term here, because without pelts to sell there is no profit to be made from the hunt, its all to keep the ecosystem there intact, something that happened anyway because of the baby seal hunting, and is thus only an economic drain

If you want to balance the ecosystem, hunting the young animals requires less deaths overall, since if an animal has reached the adult stage it has reached a stage where it might have reproduced and thus contributed to the further growth of that population

After a while of being left alone, the hunters went back to clubbing baby seals, I've known about this for a while, but I've had my fingers crossed hoping that the general public won't realise, because quite frankly I would rather a lesser number of seals were clubbed, in a way that contributed to an economy, than a greater number having to be clubbed in a way that only costs people money, or a greater number having to starve to death while a lack of salmon condemns the rest of that eco system as well

But now its been mentioned on the radio there is very little hope of the british public not taking up arms again, and theres already going to be a ban even without that

I hence would like to, if I may, start the 3rd side to the argument, the one thats actually doing the right thing, the drive to "Give the seal hunters more humane killing methods"

Who's in?

This Uncyclopedia Article should give you all of the information you need

[acronym="Please note this is only half a joke - but I'm pretty okay with clubbing humans to death. I am aware I'm in the minority."]Why's this wrong again?[/acronym]

you could quickly snap there furry little necks. Clubbing might bloddy up the fur

You watch too many movies. Snapping necks isn't as easy as it sounds.

Because doing so brings the rest of the world down on them

Or more to the point I'm conceding the point because arguing it with most people who think the contrary is pointless and detremental to any sort of cause

Because I really don't care about the opinions of the masses, I do tend to miss the joy of that sort of thing. I tend to argue with people who can actually be persuaded with logic.

mabey with seals but Rabbits are fairly easy, just a good twist in the right way

Unfortunately, Greenpeace and FAN and PETA don't care. All they care about is getting their "Message" out there. Apparently they don't realize we were given canines for a reason. (And I mean the teeth, not a dog)

Screw PETA, FAN and Greenpeace. All I have to say to them is this:

Take that seal!

Seals are vicious. Be careful. Some guy at Sea World lost his hand to one that he'd been around every day for years.

That is probably why that guy is using an iron club instead of his fists.

That would be my guess. But I personally would just go for a gun.

You want to keep rabbit populations down by twisting their neck, good luck to you.


I don't agree with your opponents but you make two very flawed assumptions with this line of reasoning.

You assume tautology - that parts of our body have a purpose or destiny. We evolved canine teeth because we used them to eat meat, not the other way around.

Secondly, just because we did something as primitives doesn't mean we should continue to do it. Group rape was something primitive man used to do. That doesn't justify rape.

it's mea. it provides nutrients to our body. It's kind of important.

No amount of hurrassment from any organisation could make me give up eating meat, nothing like a full english breakfast on a sunday morning, horribly unhealthy but necassary once in a while.

I do think however that there must be a more humane way of going about this than clubbing em? I think many peoples issue isn't with the fact that the seals are being killed, but more with the means being used to achieve it. Surely a headshot from a hunting rifle would be equally, if not more effective, and it would lessen public opinion against the situation.

They haaven't done themselves any favours denying media coverage either, makes people imagine whats going on rather than knowing, and what you imagine is often ten times worse than the actuality

Just for this, my friend, I owe you a keg of the most finely brewed ale there is to find. I enjoyed reading it.

And totally agree.

Haha, cheers, the small matter of the english channel and many miles may stop me from being able to collect methinks

I'm no animal activist, but using what people reguard as inhumane and outdated methods isn't going to win anyone any friends. I think most people who pay attention to the situation understand the need for this action, but many such as myself are baffled as to the approach that has been taken.

Nutrients that can, thanks to the miracle of fire and the magical process of cooking, be gained from foods that aren't animal.

You do have to eat a lot of lentils and what have you but it can be done without looking like you're dying.

I know vegetarians whose arguments I can accept (although there aren't many) but I myself would be fine eating people except it'd be expensive and probably wouldn't taste good.


It wouldn't.

People don't want you to kill the cute little babies. That's all it is. And I'm not a hundred percent on this, but I do think clubbing would cause less damage to the pelt than shooting them.

Waaait, babies are CUTE? That's new for me.

I have the same problem.

Their heads are poorly proportioned and their needs are demanding to an excessive degree.

Well, anyway, when it comes to animal activism it's funny. Most of the self-proclaimed activists I know keep saying they'd beat up the people who beat up seals. So, beating up seals = BAD, beating up people = GOOD accordint to their logic?

MORE CONSISTENCY AND LESS SELF-RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION, C'MON!

What people don't realize is that the seal hunt promotes conservation. It is not about viciously murdering cute baby seals for entertainment purposes. The current argument (and not a new one) is that the seals aren't being killed humanely. Someone mentioned guns. Since each bullet hole in the pelt reduces the price, guns end up being less humane as they are often fired from fishing boats and a wounded seal is left to die in agony rather than being finshed quickly with another shot. The club is actually considered quite humane and alike to the same method used in slaughterhouses all over the country.

Here's an informative site with some FAQs. It's from last year, but the controversy remains identical.

DC, unfortunately none of that matters to activists. They only see animals being "senselessly killed" for human's own gain. They don't believe that we reached the top of the food chain for a reason, and we should go right back down to the bottom. Remember, these are the people who will go get mauled by a lion just to prove that animals are "safe".

And Verbose, same argument. I didn't fight and claw my way to the top to eat lentils at every damn meal. None of us did.

Well, there's only a reason if blind luck counts as a reason.

After all, it's remarkably astounding that an animal with so few natural advantages besides a mildly elevated intellect (we're takling early on) and an ability to educate their young could survive and thrive.


You're right. None of us did any fighting and clawing at all. We were born into privelage.

Of course, the argument you're running is fine so long as you agree we should be able to feed any desire and impulse we have. Unrestrained violence for those of a vicious bent. That type of thing.

After all, they didn't fight and claw their way to the top to practice self-restraint.

I realise quite happily its being done for conservation and population control reasons, HOWEVER, if it is being done for these reasons and not for the purpose of hunting for the sale of pelts, why should the condition of the pelt matter more than the trauma that the animal is put through? The answer for this is simple, they're using conservation as an excuse to kill the animals for money, just as Japan uses science as an excuse to hunt whales for the food industry.

As to your argument of the animals being shot from boats, I'm afraid I have to call bull on that. If someone can sneak up to the animals in question to close enough range to club them then they could damn sure sneak up to close range and put a round through its head. This would be a far less cruel method of killing the animal than beating it to death with a blunt implement that dates back to the dawn of man.

So you'd rather they kill the animals and let the corpses rot, eh?

There are numerous studies that show that the environment they live in has adapted to the seals being hunted. We stop hunting the seals, we completely unbalance the ecosystem that's grown in the region. So you accept that it's kinder to kill them rather than let them all starve and die over days and weeks.

But do you really think it's better to kill them and let the corpse go to waste? If people make a profit off it, it feuls the industry and pays for itself. It creates employment and still keeps the seals in healthy parametres.


Oh, I'm sorry.

I didn't realise you had so much experience at knowing whether a club to the base of the skull is more painful than a bullet in the same spot.

Either way, dead is dead. Why waste bullets and send the rest of the seals scattering, wasting time as well, just because you think it's kinder to shoot something to death than crush the skull.

The reality is that either way it's short and sharp. One way takes a shitload more time and energy than the other way. Your arguments are inefficient.

If you actually read what I said you would realise that is not what I said. If you're gonna kill it you may as well use it, what I was saying is that the method of killing the animal is being used to preserve the pelt as the first importance, rather than putting down the animal as painlessly as possible being the importance. I would have thought me saying "why should the condition of the pelt matter more than the trauma that the animal is put through?" would have gotten that accross but nevermind.

I have read into the situation and have nothing against the fact the animals are killed to control numbers for conservation reasons, and have not indicated that I do have anything against the fact that they are killed at any point, in fact quite the opposite, my only argument is with the method used to achieve it.

And as far as my knowledge of medieval weaponary and its effectiveness, I used to train with medieval weapons including maces which are not terribly different from clubs as a part of training for medieval re-enactments, so I have more of a concept than many people do of the limitations and inneficiencys of these weapons. A mace is not easy to hit acurately against a target due to the overbalanced weight of the weapon, as such it is an unweildy instrument, and can take multiple strikes to concuss a target if medieval medical information is to be believed, as such it could take multiple strikes for the animal to die, whereas one bullet is far more likely to do the same job.

Before calling my arguments ineficient in future please actually read my post fully.

Which I did take into account. I was working on the assumption that your problem had little or nothing to do with the killing itself.


Which I'm willing to grant far exceeds my own, but I doubt that part of your studies took into account using a club to bash a tiny animal's skull.

I doubt sincerely that it's possible to prolong their pain unless you're trying to do that. These people are doing a job. They would strive for efficiency. One hard blow to end it quickly gets their job done a lot quicker and gets them inside well before doing it slowly.

So you're suggesting that the process be slowed down and costs increased (by an indeterminate amount, depending on what types of guns and ammo are needed and used) for what would most likely be a negligible difference in the time it takes for these creatures to die. This isn't trapping them in cruel conditions for weeks. It's a difference of seconds worth of pain. Minutes at an absolute worst case scenario.

It seems to be idealistic folly to be taking such negligible [acronym="It's always worth looking at these factors but when the difference is this small, they become negligible."]factors [/acronym]into serious consideration.

Haha, no I haven't run around hitting wee animals with the medieval kit, but when you can see what they do to wooden targets and shields, and read about the kind of skull trauma injuries people survived for quite long periods from maces in the medieval period, I just don't believe that clubbing is the most efficient (humane causes wise anyway) method.

I don't understand how shooting would take any longer as far as the process than clubbing, process would be the same, get as close to the animal as possible, but instead of beating it to death you just take careful aim and shoot it. I admit that this would increase the costs and the difference in the time taken to die would be small, but the fact that the pain the animals sufer could be diminished and there is no attempt to do so damages public opinion, otherwise this would not be anywhere near as much of a hot topic.

I admit it may be idealistic, but I've been looking at this from the view that this approach is only damaging the reputation and public views of Canada and the surrounding areas by not using what is publicly viewed as a more humane method. Being shot may only save a few seconds of pain for the animal, but the concept of clubbing a seal in the public mind after talking to people about it is not one of one sharp blow to the back of the head, but of an unnecasarily brutal approach. Were there more media access to the hunt this might help peoples opinions, as they would be able to see the reality of the hunt for themselves, but untill people can see more of what goes on than the separated and uninformative reports recieved in the news and the rants by animal rights activists people will continue to object to the issue.

Uhm, yes, but then we need to theach the predator animals to learn to use finesse instead of brute force to catch their prey...I wonder how the poor antelope suffers when it's jumped by a passing carnivore.

I doubt they're likely to supply some sort of silencer and the crack of a gunshot would probably be far more alarming to animals that a wet thud.


Ah, but are we discussing public opinion or are we discussing the ethics behind the clubbing?

I assure you, the two things are almost always unrelated.

Link.


Point is, banning the sale of seal products actually makes the hunt more wasteful. For conservation reasons, the hunt must continue. If the sale seal skins and seal meat (which is already sold to a very limited market - and much goes to waste) are not allowed, the hunt is not going to stop. It will need to be more heavily subsidized by the gov't, and will probably be less humane since recovery of corpses will no longer be necessary.

Unfortunately, people see a cute little baby seal being clubbed and start protesting. No wonder they don't put cameras inside abattoirs. More people would be fighting for the rights of the veal I ate for dinner last night. And that's not even for conservation and preservation of the bovine species.

(Look, another example of ignorance v. idiocy )

I should point out that the continued existance of pigs/chickens/sheep etc depends upon people eating them, farmers aren't going to keep them if theres no profit and then they'd simply become a pest animal feeding on the plant crops to be hunted down and killed

Thus, abbotoirs are a part of the conservation of those species

As a religious person would say:

"If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?"

And remember, God told Noah to take two of every animal except the ones that are good to eat. He told him to take lots of those.

This type of thing is what comes when you humour the people who want to protest.

Shave the sheep... im mean save , save the sheep.

I think all those people who want animals to be more or just as important as humans need help.

What they need is to be put into wilderness for a month and see if they can survive. It's easy going on about poor animals if you think salad grows on supermarket shelves.

why did he make meat tasty would be my question!

Actually, there are several coherent arguments to justify the ethical treatment (and potentially the not-eating-of) animals.

After all, the only real difference is one of species.


That's completely irrelevant. Over generations, human beings have ceased breeding the genes for successful foraging due to our reliance on the much more reliable method that is farming. More to the point, next to zero human beings are actually required to go to the wilderness for any length of time in their life.

You may as well say that animals should be dropped in a busy intersection to see how well they imitate humans.

It doesn't impact their beliefs and while it would probably be amusing to watch, it's a nonsequitor in regards to the Animal Rights movement.

Why would I say that? Animals mind their own business, you know.

Not through some high-minded altruism, I assure you.

Poor people keep their head down too. Don't have the time or the energy to waste on other stuff. Gotta scavange all the food they're going to get.

And intelligence. I think that alone qualifies us as "sentient" and them as "near-sentient". Until that is proven wrong I will continue to trust in the proven pecking order on this planet.

The problem, of course, with using intelligence as a guiding light means that it's non-discriminatory.

If I was found to be more intelligent than you, I would have more rights and privelages than you. And then you have an issue of where to draw the line. After all, going by intelligence means you've just condemned anybody with a more than extremely mild mental disability as an animal.

That's not what I meant and you know it. We have attained a level of superiority on this planet and I don't think giving it back to nature is incredibly counter productive. Survival of the fittest. We are the species that is able to survive in any condition and therefore we have the best ability to survive, including eating and killing the other species on the planet.

You speak as though we are apart from nature. This is false.

Our cities and our polluting is every bit as natural as a badger living in the woods. We're not above the rest of the world, we just currently have a good ability to control the world around us to a decent degree.

To accept that ability as being a justification in and of itself, you lose the ability to complain when militant dictators start executing people for their own amusement. After all, they can do it. Why shouldn't they?

Humans fell away from nature a long time ago. Our actions affect the world around us, this is true. But the minute we decided to move into our glass towers, we effectively seperated ourselves from the world around us.

And they shouldn't do it because who are they to decide who lives and dies? As a leader, they are supposed to care for their people, not effectively destroy them. that's like saying, "Hey, I have the ability to rape women, so why shouldn't I?"

Except that type of behaviour is native to humans.

We are natural.


The People, as a collective, are more important than persons. And regardless, you completely missed the sarcasm in my post. If you want to justify eating animals or treating them poorly by saying we can, then you can't complain about militant dictators.

Since I never once justified eating animals by claiming we can, I really shouldn't be attacked for that whole line of reasoning because I was saying it was wrong.

We I.E. the ones taking most if not all of the heat for this.(The Canadians) Don't usually use clubs. We shoot em. It was in our news a little while ago about that PETA (i think it was) commercial where there was a guy watching in a car as another guy beat a third guy to death with a club that was in Europe. with the slogan going something like If you think this is wrong then why allow baby seals to be beaten. I do believe thats when the most recent banning began to be talked about.