Seal hunt protest has always been about money
Published Thursday June 4th, 2009
Kudos to Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean and her plucky support for Canada's embattled seal hunt!
It's encouraging to see someone of influence standing up for the sealers whose livelihood is being endangered by the manipulation of European public opinion. Her simple gesture of participating in an Inuit seal ceremony could send a signal of enlightenment to the European Parliament, which recently voted to ban seal products.
I'm disappointed that so many well-meaning people have been taken in by the massive propaganda machine developed by the anti-sealing lobby, which I think has become a self-serving money machine. And I'm disappointed for the honest east-coast sealers and Inuit peoples, who are seeing their livings eroded.
Will the do-gooders sleep more happily in their beds knowing that fishermen won't be able to find markets for those floppy-flippered seals they harvest? The seals - not an endangered species by any measure - can gulp down more of our diminishing cod stocks while the fishermen and their families, whose markets are being snatched away, tighten their belts another notch.
From the beginning, the seal hunt controversy has been a staged affair. Photos and videos of a bloody abattoir on the ice have been powerfully exploited to build comfortable financial empires for some animal-rights groups. Uninformed celebrities have been lured into the campaign. In my view, the European Parliament and others are being misled.
If the seal hunt, engaged in for a few weeks by a few thousand Canadian fishermen, should be exterminated by this hypnotic attempt to torpedo its markets, what do you think the hyper-active animal rights organizations are going to do next?
If they can't get animal-sympathizers' money to save the seals, they're sure as heck going to be looking for another target to sustain their wealthy coffers. It's what they do. It's not about the seals. It's about money.
The scandal about all this is that so many nice old ladies, so many well-meaning animal lovers, so many decent people have been mesmerized into sending cash and bequests to organizations that thrive on this misplaced concern for big-eyed, fish-eating seals.
Their propaganda efforts might bring down a small sealing operation in Canada - with devastating effects on the fishermen who engage in it. But what about the real problems that affect real people in our world? Who's going to bat for them?
What about the Somalis, the Tamils, the people in the Middle East, those human beings whose lives are being tormented by ongoing strife? What about all the living babies in their mother's wombs whose lives are being targeted by the Morgentaler abortion campaign? Who's sending money to some well-heeled organizations to deal with real human problems?
Caring about animals with whom we share this world is fine and can even be noble. Caring about our fellow human beings is a much higher priority on my list.
The abundant seals have been traditionally "culled" in a regular fishing harvest. Other animals - cattle, pigs, sheep and chickens are slaughtered daily all over the world in abattoir operations that most humans condone. This human-animal relationship is all part of the life-cycle of nature. The anti-seal hunt movement has only become a modern cause because some people are making money out of it.
The once-a-year harvesting of predatory seals in a limited, controlled and monitored situation is no different than the slaughtering of beef cattle for our steaks or lobster for our plates. Why are people so sympathetic to seals and so indifferent to their legitimate balance-of-nature hunters? Because they've been duped.
Modern society - especially the well-meaning population in Europe, far away from where the seal hunt briefly takes place - has set itself up as the golden goose for an international cadre of money-making propagandists.
Fred Hazel is a retired editor-in-chief of this newspaper. His column appears on Thursday.
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It's always about money, only one of the two is used for the earth loving commendable cause to save innoc animals, where else are they going to get the funds to be able to do this. And the other one for big slaughter party's of innocent animals only to make money for the addit savings account.
And I'm not talking about the original inuit people who have done this for centuries from father to son, who indeed used all of the animal. They also have become a victem of human greed and indulgence wanting to wear the pels 0f a seal( it's digusting).
If you live there and it's your way of live, you take what you need, you won't hear all those people in protest. It's the fact that it has become a industrie on it's own and the worst parties are the fisherman to whom it serves a double purpoise. They have there extra cash in skins to sell to fur companies and the less fish is eaten by seals the more there is to catch for them. So who's the big money making machine now!
<i>Whose</i> livelihood is being endangered?! Manipulation?!
<i>Who</i> are seeing their livings eroded?!
Will the <u>Murderers</u> sleep more happily in their beds knowing that they are responsible for the bloodshed of thousands of innocents?? Are their dreams ever filled with blood stained horror??
The images speak only the Truth. It is your cold, greedy little heart that is mislead.
You want to talk about the Somali's strife?!! Much of Their strife is due to countries illegally dumping toxins and overfishing in their waters! "real human problems"? - People like You.
"Caring about our fellow human beings is a much higher priority on my list." ~ Then you need to take a real good look at the Big picture. Sorry, but caring about Greed ridden selfish humans is at the bottom of Mine. Plague of the Earth.
Factory farms are Not Part of Nature and I do Not Condone it, Thank You. The Seals eating the Fish, however, Is all part of the life-cycle of nature, as it has been for thousands of years.
How About --- a once-a-year "harvesting" of predatory humans in a limited, controlled and monitored situation?!