Comments on: 275,000 seals

By: grammote

grammote — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:13:35 +0000

I am glad to see this discussion….
In the US there are laws to protect animals from cruelty BUT they are NEVER enforced..Example..COWS in California being slaughtered for our school children to eat. Most of us have seen the horrid pictures.
there are the baby seals,the sharks for their fins ,the bears for their paws….America’s Horses for their meat……
I guess we can pick our battle !!There are sure enough !!

However Americans don’t eat horse..this has been a dirty little secret between US government and Belgium owned business for the last 30 years.
They sell their meat in Italy,Japan,France at up to 50 $ per pound.It goes to the rich not to feed the poor .

I have much information showing the extreme cruelty done to our horses by Belgium Owned business.Our horses have become their GOLD MINE !!
Our custom in the US has NEVER included eating our horses.

A horses is knocked (clubbed)in the head several times in the kill box as they fight for their lives.When finally knocked out …In seconds they again come to and find that they are chained by a hoof and lifted off the floor when a knive slits their throat and they slowly bleed to death.. Most mares slaughtered are pregnant. Their babies are cut out alive and tossed on a gut pile to die.

This is why I have joined American’s Against Horse Slaughter. Please check out my blog.
http://teambarbarowisconsin.blogspot.com/...

By: derrick

derrick — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:45:56 +0000

Michael makes a good point of course. I’d guess that’s the vegan point of view really. Since animals used for food all meet a “brutal” end then we should not eat any animal products. Of course I’m not vegan but I got to give them credit for standing up for their values. On the other hand we do tend to need to deal with issues like spot fires. People just don’t have the patience to try to take in everything at once, so activists focus on the issue most important to them. It’s the only way they can keep energized. Man, if you took all the problems of the world and tried to solve them at once you’d go mad!

Thing is most folks I know who hunt were taught to be a good shot. Regulations are in place in most industrial farms to try to be humane. (of course we all know there are issues there too). I don’t think most people are opposed to hunting although like Dave says there seems to be a slow shift away from it. In fact most individuals that kill animals for one reason or another are in general trying to be humane even if they feel killing the animal is ok. But the issue with the seal hunt, or whaling or the annual dolphin drive in Japan is the seeming cruelty of the method and of course the value of the hunt in the end. My original post was certainly not about hunting, but about the graphic way in which it’s carried out.

Here’s an example of what I’m getting at. Here in town we have hundreds of ducks. You could argue that we have WAY TOO MANY ducks. But the community seems to have decided they are pets. So a family immigrates from China and opens a restaurant. Well, they realize that there are lots of ducks . . . . Well, the poor guy got a lesson in local laws and took a lot of heat. In the end the community seems to have forgiven him and the restaurant is still doing well. (although he has to get his ducks in the proper manner now)

The other thing the ducks do is stop traffic. Always. In Baraboo on a busy road it is not uncommon to see traffic all backed up as everyone waits for ducks to cross the road. Almost everyone will wait for the ducks. It’s just a fact of life here. Yet every once in awhile you’ll get some bonehead who will go around the traffic and run over the ducks intentionally. Who knows if it’s the joy of killing, or the fact that he is late for work and a duck is just a duck, or that he thinks the community is stupid for putting up with the ducks and expresses that by running one over in plain sight of everyone in all the cars that are waiting. (imagine explaining that behavior to a child watching).

The point is, no one is questioning hunting ducks or issues of livelihood. (well, some are, sure), but people in general just question the method and the mindset.

By: Dave O

Dave O — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:00:09 +0000

This is actually the most thoughtful, insightful, and non-knee jerk discussion I’ve ever read on the topic. The fact is that everyone has their own personal ethic. As hunter, mine is not to hunt anything that I don’t enjoy eating. Deer and grouse wind up in the freezer; geese and diving ducks do not. People personally moving against this sort of thing based upon their personal ethics, rather than rants by Holllywood jet setter types will help make a difference. The holier than thou syndrome (Al Gore driving his Prius up to his private jet )just ain’t gonna cut it in my book.

By: Michael Bradley

Michael Bradley — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:42:33 +0000

There are no easy deaths. Not in Newfoundland, Greenland, or anywhere. Let’s not fool ourselves into believing that burger we just ate came from a cow happy. Humans have been killing animals so we could exist for several million years. It’s time we stop pretending it’s all going to end. Far better to spend our energy on saving the planet we’ve wrecked, an issue much more detrimental to every living thing than the harvest of some seals.

By: Rio

Rio — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:12:39 +0000

Well, personally, I think treating any animal like that is sick, and I don’t mind the overexposure of one animal being mistreated, because it at least makes people think about it. It’s hard to expose all the abuses of animals, of course, but at least some keep trying. It’s a sad thing that only the ‘cute’ animals get noticed. I could go on forever about animals rights, but I’ll spare everyone.