Controversial annual seal hunt begins in Canada
- Thread starter Blackleaf
- Start date
yeah.... I guess so.
Here's my question. What the hell kind of animal lets people get that close to them anyway? 8O
You got that part right.
A bunch of self righteous uninformed people raising millions of dollars by feeding lies to an equally uninformed public.
This is an interesting comment. Lieing is never right but...... don't the people have the responsibility to research the things they hear on TV? I NEVER take anything out of the media at face value and neither should anyone else. :angry3:
Leave the seals alone. Leave the sharks alone. Make some progress on global warming. It is the beginning of a new century and the environment is priority number one. If action is to be taken on anything it should be human population growth. But that would mean contesting our specialness. Oh, my.....
So you're saying we're not unique, and that we are equal in status to all the other animals of the world?
No, you said that, Karrie. So what did you mean by what you said?
What I said is the number one obstacle to the planet's health is the human demographic. What are we doing about it? Shocking numbers on sea life have hit the media for the last week and it's all due to human overharvesting of ocean life. There are too damn many of us. No species should be pushed to extinction because we refuse to contain our wants.
What I said is the number one obstacle to the planet's health is the human demographic. What are we doing about it? Shocking numbers on sea life have hit the media for the last week and it's all due to human overharvesting of ocean life. There are too damn many of us. No species should be pushed to extinction because we refuse to contain our wants.
You said that it would mean 'contesting our specialness'... it implied we're not unique or special. Your words, I just wanted clarification.
Yes, but only humans should be subjected to culls and population control, not cute furry seals. lol.
Yes, Herman, and the exact idiotic response was given about our cod. The DFO didn't have a flying fig on that one, did they? With global warming changing all the rules of the game, and sea ice receding much more quickly than in the past, even you should know that this is a time when we should reassess what we're doing. Take a pause and reconsider what's at stake. With horrendous news coming out on the freshwater eel in Canada again this week - another species where they weren't in any danger of extinction blah blah blah - I'm in no mood to take the word of Canadian scientists on anything.
it's rather harder to count cod than seals. There are very accurate numbers on the amounts of seals, mainly thanks to the interest in seal hunting.
I agree with you that the cod debacle was embarrassing and disgraceful. There weren't many "environmentalists" making a fuss about that though were therE? no pictures of a baby cod with paul mcCartney laying down beside it, no posters of a dead cod in a pool of blood with the words "the true face of canada".
This situation, however, is rather different.
I agree with you that the cod debacle was embarrassing and disgraceful. There weren't many "environmentalists" making a fuss about that though were therE? no pictures of a baby cod with paul mcCartney laying down beside it, no posters of a dead cod in a pool of blood with the words "the true face of canada".
This situation, however, is rather different.
Really not even close. Huge differences. Canada kicks out factory trawlers, extends limit to 200 miles. Canadian catch jumps from 139,000 tonnes at that point to 250,000 tonnes as Canadian investors jump in. New fishing vessels, what we now know as the draggers become the norm. Inshore cod fisherman voice concerns, as well as scientists voicing concern over biomass numbers. Government hesitant to lay off so many people and lose so much investment.
Seal fishing. Catch size determined by surveys of whelping grounds. Actually decreased this year from last year, probably a result of less sea ice. Little investment, steady number of fishers. Most importantly, no new technology which produces a "ratchet effect'. That is, strained stocks put under more pressure by more efficient capture methods.
If we can't rely on marine scientists, who then? Certainly they know more than the top DFO knuckleheads who so often think of bottom lines rather than ecological assessments. DFO officials have learned how to keep their ass out of the fire, listen to the scientists. This includes other fisheries as well. Such as new trawl methods with two cod ends rather than one, after scientists study behaviour and find that some fish turn up when the trawl nips their caudal fins, while others do a complete 180 turn into the cod end. Larger mesh sizes to ensure the smaller fish can escape. Bans on fishing in nursing areas. And so on and so forth....
Ah yes, and yet if in years to come the seal numbers were to decline precipitously, you'd jump on your box and say the opposite. The world community has spoken, there's no need for this hunt, it raises a pittance for its participants, it blackens our reputation and has encouraged disrespect and non-compliance for important, global sealife preservation efforts.
Herman, the hunt is offensive.
Herman, the hunt is offensive.
You know Tamarin, I don't think you know me well enough to say where I stand. Suffice it to say, if I saw a large reduction in the whelping grounds I would be very concerned if DFO didn't drastically reduce catch limits. The cod stocks were our first large slap to the face, and with this politically charged issue, DFO can ignore the calls to stop because of the numbers. That is what they learned the hard way when they ignored the scientists. Until those numbers tell a different story they'll continue to base their decisions on the science, not the politics. If it were politics that drove the issue, there would be no hunt, and I suspect it wouldn't be long before population collapse.
I have seen first hand how it works. I explained earlier how I was a fishery observer. It was actually part of a work practicum I did. The majority of my work was with the scallop fishery in Southwest Nova Scotia. The fishery was closed in a number of areas because of the large numbers of lobsters which were being caught in the scallop drags. This fishery had a very high priority, I actually had to submit reports while at sea, that's how intensive the coverage has become. The coverage for seal hunts is even more intense. No fisherman wants what happened in Newfoundland with the cod to happen to them, that's why 2/3 of my paycheck was billed to the fisherman.
I don't see the seal hunt as blackening our reputation. Our reputation is just fine. We have an annual seal hunt that has been going on for over three hundred years. The seal population is actually increasing. It has tripled in the last decade. The seal hunt will bring in over thirty million dollars and it's nobody's business but ours.
I hardly think that we should run our country based on what 'the world community' thinks we should do.
The hunt is offensive TO YOU. Not to me. So my suggestion to you is, don't buy seal products.