All Europeans are vegetarian, right?

I don't think they're actually hunting cows in the British Isles....

I don't recall hearing anything about them removing meat from the menu. They still eat cows which are hardly an endangered species.

Neither are seals. But I'm assuming slaughterhouses are not pleasant places, nor is the transport to them, or the holding yards or the march up to the kill line. What's cruel is cruel eh!

To be fair, the European Union has also issued a new regulation in 2007 concerning the welfare of animals during transport, forcing all member countries to change their national laws accordingly.

On the other hand, non-member countries who allow commercial seal hunt are not at all forced to change their legislation merely because the European Union has different ideas about the welfare or treatment of animals.


As far as I understand it, the official reason why Canada is allowing commercial seal hunt is that the culling is necessary to control the seal population and reduce the amount of fish taken out of the sea by the seals. If that's really the reason, it shouldn't matter at all whether or not foreign countries allow the import of seal products.

pretty much my thinking on this topic. Trying not to rant. I save it for the car ride to and from work - my passenger and I ranted companionably about this for about 40 minutes today.

you're nicer than I am. I can't even bring myself to consider such a trip.

Puhleese!!!



How Charitable !



Unless you take into account the Inuit... Suicides, depressed markets, etc....

Serious question: are you saying that hunting seals and raising cattle are essentially the same thing in terms of how animals are being treated, and it's hypocritical to ban one thing but not the other?

ehBeth, going with my mom to Ireland. I haven't been since I was twelve. I'm looking forward to vegetarian meals, and I can't wait to see the Europeans/British walking around in plastic shoes. Squeak, squeak, squeak...

yes

Absolutely. No question. Go to a slaughterhouse, have a great big mouthful of Pâté de Foie Gras, or watch a spanish trawler scraping the bottom of the ocean. Hypocritical!

That's a very good point. However, if I understand it correctly, the proposed law would exempt seal products from the Arctic Inuit community. Is the assumption that that wouldn't be enough - that the entire market would collapse because of the European ban on seal product imports, and that this would affect the Inuit in spite of the fact that they could still export seal products to the EU?

The reason why the hunting has been forbidden has nothing to do with the meat.
Seal babies are hunted for their fur and the fur is pulled off the live seals.
It is cruelty and has nothing to do with slaughtering.

You don´t know anything about the problem but make a big thing about it and even make fun of cruelty to animals. Totally ignorant about the subject and then on top of think you are really funny.

If I'm not wrong, the USA has had a ban for many years, Mexico has banned the trade.
In Europe, we already had national bans in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy.
Many counties have campaigns since more than 40 years against the trade ...

Actually, it's mainly Denmark and Italy which are effected: these countries import seal skins from Canada and Greenland [Denmark] and Russia, Finland and the UK (Scotland) [Italy]. Greece has a noticeable trade in raw skins as well.

The ban would still allow trade in seal products derived from hunts traditionally conducted by Inuit and other indigenous communities and which contribute to their subsistence.
Greenland is not really effected by the new law as they are traditionally hunters, who do not kill seal babies alive. That is one reason why Denmark continued to import seal skin from Greenland - if one can talk about importing from part of your country.
Greenland will be a seperate country within Denmark June 2009.

Totally ignorant???
I don't think cruelty is funny. Show me where I've written this. I find hypocrisy funny? As in, weird...maybe.
Canada doesn't kill baby seals, hasn't done so since the 70's. Get your facts straight. Skinning animals alive??? At one point yes, but again, the propaganda you've swallowed shows your ignorance. Hunters, whether Inuit or white, have been monitored for years and have proven time and time again that their practices are as humane as killing any animal could be.
Prove to me that the meat you eat is done with such scrupulousness.
Or, perhaps the next time you sit in your SAAB with it's leather seats, that the animal that comforts your ass has suffered no pain.
Again, I find your moral superiority to be laughable, that is if it weren't so sick in the first place.
Spare me your indignation.

You did not write that cruelty is funny but: All Europeans are vegetarian, right?
The headline already is a twist to make the law a funny law.
I do not drive a car with leatherseats.

Obviously, you don't understand sarcasm.
I can't help you with this. This law is absurd.

Why if Canada has not been skinning seals alive since 1970 can I then find articles like this in 2009. And how come I have seen pictures and articles about it almost every year.

March 18, 2009


Today, the Russian government made headlines when it announced a complete ban on the slaughter of seals less than one year of age, effectively ending one of the world’s major kills of harp seals.

Now, people around the world are asking why Canada"a progressive nation"has not taken action to end its own kill of some of the most defenseless animals on the planet. Every year hundreds of thousands of baby seals are killed in that country for their fur.

Russia's announcements followed a statement by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that "[this] is such a bloody hunt, and it is clear that it should have been banned a long time ago." Russia's Minister of Natural Resources, Yuri Trutnyev, called sealing "one of the most inhumane types of hunting in the world."

In as little as a week's time, hunters will head to the ice floes of northern Canada to conduct the largest slaughter of marine mammals on Earth. Canada's commercial seal hunt is every bit as cruel as Russia's.

Scientists, parliamentarians, and journalists who observe the slaughter report unacceptable levels of cruelty, including sealers dragging conscious seals across the ice floes with boat hooks, shooting seals and leaving them to suffer in agony, stockpiling dead and dying animals, and even skinning seals alive.
Not surprisingly, the vast majority of Canadians want the seal hunt to be ended for good. With Russia leading the way, Canada should now take action to save the seals, and relegate the commercial seal hunt to the history books where it belongs. We've made considerable progress so far in shutting down the slaughter, but we need your help to win this fight. The 2009 slaughter starts in just days.
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