Largest Seal Cull In Half A Century Reaches Bloody Climax

So much for being enviromentaly friendly.
The rest of the world can now have a good laugh.

Maybe the whole country is nuts.
Is this good or bad?
Comments please,with ideas.

Nuts? Well, no. Seal meat is a staple of the diet in Atlantic Canada, and the fur is used for many things too.

The seal hunt's main purpose is to reduce the population so their main food - Cod - can make some sort of recovery. If DFO had used some sort of scientific method of determining the actual health of the cod fishery, then they wouldn't be 96% depleted and the seal hunt wouldn't have to be so large.



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"If you must kill a man, it costs you nothing to be polite about it." Winston Churchill

US Networks build their own fortress America
by Anonymous on Monday, March 28 2005 @ 10:01 AM MST

Check out the above post on this site. Why you don't hear much aboot it in the Canadian press, or on Canadian websites. Lengthy post on another topic, but it IS relevant to the point 4canada is attempting to make. Frightening isn't it...

This seal hunt is total bunk. You take what you need and no more. The only ones who should be allowed to hunt seals are first nations people and for their own use. Who eats seal meat? They just take their skins. If fisherman have no other means, it is their own fault for taking too much cod and not watching out for overfishing. Typical white male ethics.

That sounds pretty darn good to me.
Then when there are no seals left,like cod,the fishermen will scream they don`t have jobs because there is no seal no cod.What will they hunt then?

Typical uninformed activist. Go into many grocery stores in Newfoundland/Labrador and you will find canned seal meat in the canned meat section.


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"If you must kill a man, it costs you nothing to be polite about it." Winston Churchill

Well,were is all the cod?

ate them already ... sort of like the Northwest Sockeye Salmon already extinct in places, on the endangered species list in others, and Canadians are still commercially fishing for them. Available still on supermarket shelves here in Ottawa, the nation's capitol. I can remember the day when I could literally walk across the Salmon River in Idaho on the backs of the Sockeye returning to Redfish Lake(named after the red colour they turn when spawning)from the pacific ocean to spawn. The last returning fish was recorded in the mid nineties. That was many years after recreational, native, and commercial fishing for them was halted when they became endangered. Now they're gone. Amazingly enough upon my arrival to Ottawa I discovered that Sockeye Salmon was a very popular item in the local supermarkets. I about had a coronary over it. I was sick to my stomach and actually cried. I couldn't believe that Canadians were STILL taking Sockeye out of the Pacific commercially. Now, a few years later, I am reading stories here about how the Fraser River Sockeye in B.C. will be gone or close to it in a few short years, and probably won't ever recover.

Sockeye...cod...seals...and we here in Canada feel as though we need to instruct the Alaskans on how to protect the caribou in THEIR country. We're funny like that here, eh? But then again, it's much better to tell someone else that they should do it, and how they should do it, than to do it ourselves.

Anyone ever notice how the lumber thing got going? It was turned into an "us against them" thing by those here who stood to gain financially, wasn't it? And we all just went merrily along because we just LOVE to hate those bastard Americans. Nothing better than a good 'ol pissin' match, eh? Environment issues...U.S. logging companies have to bear the cost of replanting areas harvested and doing things in a very restrictive, environmentally conscious way. It SHOULD be done this way, shouldn't it? It's what's right for the continued well being of the planet. That affects ALL of us. The prohibitive cost of logging in this fashion made making an actual profit extremely difficult if not impossible. Many mills went out of business, and many people in small communites lost jobs...whole communities were wiped out. I've seen it. Why? The companies that survived...the BIG ones...owned by Canadians. Locals couldn't compete in that restrictive, costly environment against cheap lumber being dumped on the U.S. market by the same companies operating North of the border with absolutely NO regulation as to environmentally conscious operation. The native populations in Canada can bear witness to the search and destroy methods of operation being conducted by the Canadian timber industry. They even attempt to take the native's lumber. Slash and burn, slash and burn...woo-hoo...slash and burn...and no end in site. In the states lumber is considered a "renewable resource". Meaning harvest, replant, harvest, replant, and don't damage the ecosystem. Takes time, takes money. The U.S. government levies tariffs on the cheaply dumped lumber coming in from up north to attempt to level the "playing field" somewhat trying save what jobs for the little guy in the American Northwest that are still left in the timber industry. Families in need of food, clothing, and shelter. Enter Canadian nationalism. It's all aboot them. As always. And money. Screaming like banshees about "corporate elites" ( when the only large "elite corporations" operating in the states in that industry are actually canadian OWNED) and other such drivel. Don't worry dear canucks...there's more than enough tree huggers in the states willing to chain themselves to a tree here or there to ensure the big CANADIAN companies operating in American forests follow the rules set forth by the U.S. government to protect it's environment. Canada should worry aboot Canada. Protect what's left in Canada for Canadians. Future generations just might appreciate it.

So think "do what's right" for Canada...it's environment, and the future of those seal herds, and those Canadians dependent upon them.

The fisherman already screwed the pooch, and payed..no were payed...handsomely for it. The cod, and now the sockeye...know when to say no. Leave the seals alone unless there is use for them as stated by some of the above posts. It's honorable to want to feed one's family, and clothe them. We are all a part of the food chain. If that's what's necessary for the native population, where's the harm if the seals are dispatched in a HUMANE manner (not skinning while alive for example), and in numbers scientifically determined to be appropriate to maintain the health of the herds. But...is it necessary to slaughter BABY seals? That's just my own "bugaboo" I guess. Guess I'm a bit namby-pamby, but it really does bother me...a lot. Any way, hopefully Canada won't be as hypocritical on the world stage over the seal thing as it's been in other areas. It's getting embarrassing already .

This nation needs a new political will.
Everything is becoming so stupid.
The rich do what they want,everyone else gets screwed.

If I remember right, there were some people trying to bring back the whale hunt a few years ago. They may be the next to go.

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"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." Frederick Neitsche

The seal cull just isn't that big a deal - it's for the fur, and to keep the population down, not really the meat. Seal meat is NOT a staple of the atlantic canadian diet, I'm from there, but you can get it certainly.

Frankly, if they weren't so cute this wouldn't get any attention. Why don't people worry a bit more about all the cows and battery hens dying daily. At least the seals had a nice life!

For those of you fretting, there is NO shortage of seals, they won't become extinct. The cod is a completely different story - it was overfished, certainly, but remember europeans and other countries are to blame for this too. I sincerely doubt we'll run out of seals, esp. as so few of their natural predators are around these days.

Thanks. Oh, and stop treating like this is some sort of massive political question or related to canadian apathy - people in canada just have a more realistic, less emotional view about the whole thing.