Inuit sue EU over seal ban

I support them 100% and any other seal hunters-fishermen.

It is self-evident that the seal-hunt band is motivated by white supremacy.

They want to assuage the guilt of white liberals, so they go after the easiest group, non-whites in a foreign country attacking a cute animal.

Until they make steps towards legislating vegetarianism I won't take any of these actions at face value.

Our european friends would find no problem with killing seals by taking the last fish from the sea, however.   

I allways root for the Bulls in Pamplona.

That's why we must sell as much seal products to the Chinese. They love the stuff. And selas are very plentiful; they reproduce so fast that the Inuit and any other sealers could harvest an limitless amount. And seal products are all natural, basically a "green" product. Vinyl coats contain PVCs, PCBs etc. Seal coats are pure comfort and safe. And seal meat is very nutricious. Can't say enough good things a bout seals.

That is one of the best, and most succinct, summaries of this whole thing I've read.  Excellent - thanks.

But what about the white sealers/fishermen of Newfoundland, Quebec, and Nova Scotia?

I do have one cousin that is a fisherman in Newfoundland. He has been in the seal hunt ever since he has been at least 18 yrs old. It also is an important part of his yearly income. It is a hunt that some Newfoundland fishermen have carried on for years and years throughout history and has never been a threat to the seal population. Yes, the pictures of the seal hunt may not be so nice, but it's a hunt not a picnic on an ice flow.

People like the EU, PETA and so forth I cannot understand. Their outcry is simply aided by cute and pretty pictures of a baby seal that brings alot of sympathy. Never saw these folks put on a massive campaign with cod fish pictures when that industry and species was disappearring. Meanwhile, there are meatshops iin Europe that carry horsemeat, or hunters in Russia that raid a hypernating bear den to get what they want.

Eastwinds, I think the Newfie fisherman are also seen as an "easy target" due to class. These are people in remote rural communities trying to scrape by a living and supplementing their diet with seal meat. 

These people know perfectly well that if they went after factory beef farming and leather production they would not get as many donations or sympathy - let alone EU-specific, more inhumane (and high class) industries like fois gras. 

There was an excellent documentary about this issue on the Doc channel the other evening, My Ancestors were Rogues and Murderers .

Thanks !

Fisheries and Oceans Minister Gail Shea was hit in the face with a pie at an event on Monday in Burlington, Ont., a news station is reporting.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/01/25/burlington-shea-pie-100125.htm

l

PETA really needs to grow up.  Don't they have any female celebrities left to exploit?  Surely a little jiggle will fix things?

wow, a thread where I agree with pretty much everyone.....even snert

Go sealers

"Go sealers" ??

Yeah, I guess 'cause we all eat meat, it's pretty hypocritical to oppose any animal killing.

Go factory farms, too! Yay!!

Bludgeon the buggers! Pests of the sea!

In 1986, I wrote to the New Internationalist on precisely this issue. 

Bourgeois rights

Why is it that the NI, so willing to condemn the imperialists in Washington and Pretoria,

sits by in stony silence refusing to criticize the imperialists in Holsworthy, Devon and

Sydney, Australia? (Letters [15], NI 160 [16]).

The anti-sealing campaign of the white middle class of the first world is a culturally

imperialist assault on the dignity of natives in northern Canada, and the working-class

of Newfoundland and Labrador. The sole determinant for cultural validity for Greenpeace

and the other animal rights groups seems to be that the sensibilities of middle-class

whites in Europe, the US and Australia not be offended.

The animal-rights movement is nothing more than an assertion of cultural superiority

by bourgeois liberals, social democrats and greens. Any other class would have been

condemned, and justly so, as racists and bigots.

Father Malcolm French
Saskatchewan, Canada

FWIW, I still believe the anti-sealing campaign is inherently racist and classist.

Personally I have nothing against the seal hunt, but please, a little balance. Don't forget the cod were treated as if a limitless amount could be harvested... didn't work out so good. But by all means, I think both the Inuit and those harvesting seals in the Atlantic provinces are cognizant of the way the cod fishery was destroyed, and aren't likely to make the same mistake.

I'm sure there's an element of truth to this, but I believe that it's been animal rights activists who have been lobbying for more humane holding and slaughter facilities for livestock, for example. It certainly isn't the industry. I believe animal rights activists also work in areas of humane treatment of animals as pets. I don't see anything classist or racist about these.

Remind wrote: Go sealers

It is the complete truth. If what you say is true, why are they calling for a complete shut-down of the seal hunt, rather than attempts to make it more humane? Why do they show pictures of seals too young to be legally hunted to fundraise?

Why are they not attempting to end the slaughter of other animals? Factory farmed animals lead horrible lives and is an issue that many hunters have serious problems with. Seals live in the wild. Why is the agriculture minister of this American's home country not getting pied by her and PETA? Why is factory-farmed meat and leather not being banned by the EU?

PETA is a complete joke and they know perfectly well that the Inuit and poor East Coasters (who all EAT seal meat as well by the way) are easy targets. Packaged and transported tofu pie thrown by a woman flown in from the US is not nearly as sustainable as a seal flipper pie sourced, made and eaten by Newfoundlanders in Nfld.

Excellent letter Malcolm.

"wow, a thread where I agree with pretty much everyone."

it's not often that I agreed with Remind but this one has my 100% support.

Um, many of them are. I was responding to Malcolm's blanket statement about "animal rights activists", many of whom have succeeded in improving the lives of many different kinds of animals both in the wild and domesticated. I was also responding obliquely to the tendency of some Babblers to instantly bandwagon and polarize an issue that in real life isn't so easily polarized.

Would you say it's proportional? By that I mean that the seal hunt is a certain size, and a certain number of animals will be killed. Factory farming is also a certain size (and growing, no doubt) and in a year, will also kill a certain number of animals.

Because it really seems like PETA and other animal-rights proponents are very DISproportionally interested in the seal hunt. Bordering on obsessed, frankly.

Edited to add:  looks like one MP wants pie throwing to be investigated as possible terrorism.

Personally, I don't want to see the definition of terrorism expanded frivolously, but notwithstanding the fact that it's non-lethal, it's hard to argue with the assertion that it's an assault, and that its goal is to try to coerce a particular political opinion.

Me, I'd love to see the pie-er get two years in the pokey, and to see PETA get investigated for conspiracy for their organized involvement in this. If only to wake them the hell up. And after that, if they still have gullible stooges willing to throw two years of their life away, and earn themselves a lifetime criminal record "for the cause" then let them.

They are obsessed with fundraising and there are big donations to be had from rich Europeans who have proven for centuries that they know what is best for the planet and the people on it.  

I don't know. There are different groups focussing on different things. PETA is interested in a lot of things, by the looks of it, not just the seal hunt. But it's obvious it's easier for the seal hunt to gain more international attention.

not just more international attention, but difference international treatment.  What other Canadian products are banned in the EU? It will be very interesting to see if the Inuit are successful in their lawsuit.

I think there is a seperation between wild and domestic that is unfair.  It is like the world can be divided into two ecosystems and they are not to interact with each other (except to take pictures). I think a sustainable harvest of naturally producing animals trumps any artificial production by a long ways.

I live in a sealing community, or at least it used to be. The seal population has really declined here in the past ten years, and this with more and more folks giving up sealing almost entirely. Last winter none of our locals harvested any seals close to here - they had to take a boat up the coast to Blanc Sablon and our border with Labrador, and even there the seals were not plentiful. The past ten years or so also saw a substantial downturn in the cod fishery as well - and I think cod are essential food to seals. With very little cod and seal to harvest, the fishery turned to fishing for snow crab, which has been plentiful so far. It's actually quite amazing the amount of snow crab that have been harvested on the coast over the past decade, don't know how long this can continue.

ETA: the snow crab fishery is regulated of course, and there are DFO observers on every boat, and the DFO enforcement vessel patrols every port on the Lower North Shore with frequent visits. The limits on the crab harvest are set in co-operation with maritime scientists who not only observe the fishery as well, but conduct scientific fisheries at the end of every season.

Probably for quite a while, unless snow crabs happen to be cute, in which case you might as well prepare for Sir Paul and his entourage to helicopter into your community, sing "Give Peas a Chance" and leave.

That reminds me of a story I heard when I first came to the LNS in 1995. Greenpeace arrived for their first visit here about 25 or 30 years ago, before folks here had access to television, and no one here knew what Greenpeace was. They thought the Greenpeace ship was selling "green peas" - really!

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that in the end they weren't quite as popular as a shipment of fresh vegetables would have been.  :)

That is too funny boom boom.... :D

I'm trying to get a few more facts on this subject. One thing I'm running across is that the Inuit hunt represents only about 3% of the total seal hunt occurring in Canada and, because of geography, Inuit don't hunt the harp seal (which is considered the abundant species). Much of the international attention has been on sealing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the Inuit mostly aren't anymore. These are white Canadian commercial fishers. I also read that Inuit generally weren't (not sure about now) killing seal pups, as their practices were intended to be sustainable. While I don't argue that a total ban on seal products does affect the Inuit industry, and while such a ban can easily be argued to be hypocritical, I don't see how this EU action is racist, classist, and intentionally targets Inuit, which has been suggested here, in part in the opening article, and even more so by Babblers.

The EU is not condemning the Inuit way of life or their seal hunt for sustenance purposes, they are simply making a moral decision based on their own values, and it sucks but that's life in the international marketplace. To suggest that that morality, whether you agree with it or not, is "racist" against an industry that is 3% Inuit doesn't sound correct to me.

You forgot your link jas.

I think the Inuit live in the Canadian Arctic. Here, on the North Shore and the Lower North Shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where I've lived since 1995, live the Innu. The Innu comprise the largest villages here: Natashquan (North Shore), La Romaine (LNS), and St. Augustine (LNS), and are to be found in smaller numbers in the other villages here on the LNS. I don't know how much sealing is done by the Innu, probably Google can help.

Perhaps seeing some individual examples of Inuit business people this action will hurt would help. Or, listening [38] to what Inuit leaders have to say:

Ghislaine, the EU aren't banning seal hunting. They don't have that power. They are banning the import of seal products. They are allowed to do this.

I didn't say that they don't have a right to do this or that they are banning hunter - and neither are the Inuit doing this. The point is that it is very inconsistent, hypocritical and will have huge economic effects. 

A friend on facebook had a link to a group against the Faroe Island whale hunt.   I found it interesting in light of this discussion.

In hunting around for more info, I found this 20 minute report which seems to set the arguement that this is okay, as people have been doing it for hundreds of years.   It's part of their culture.   

Some people may find the documentary a bit graphic at the 5:00 minute mark or so.

I think the Inuit should drop the lawsuit, get the BBC to do a documentary in the Queen's English, use Celtc music in the background and get plastic surgery to look more European.   Makes all the difference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oou3N5ylvdI

I don't think that would help, Tommy, as then they would just resemble the white East Coast sealers whose activities will also be affected by the EU seal products import ban.

"It is self-evident that the seal-hunt band is motivated by white supremacy.

They want to assuage the guilt of white liberals, so they go after the easiest group, non-whites in a foreign country attacking a cute animal.

Until they make steps towards legislating vegetarianism I won't take any of these actions at face value."

I agree with Michelle. This is an excellent concise summary, if one ignores that it is completely inaccurate, misguided and ludicrous.

Which seems more likely?

Some animal-lovers  view the seal hunt as cruel, and have lobbied to get the government to end it?
or
White supremacists in Europe are attempting to engage in economic sabotage against Canada's inuit?

First of all, the EU has made an exception for the Inuit, although the exact specifics of that exemption remain unclear.
Secondly, it obviously effects Newfoundland seal-killers as well, since they will miss out on that four weeks of income that we spend millions of dollars to protect annually.

Now, if you had made an argument that suggested that the EU has ignored the impact this will have on the Inuit, then you might have had some validity. Incidentally, while I don't talk to white supremacists, I have yet to meet a Conservative that wasn't 100% in favour of the seal hunt. So, I sincerely doubt it's a white supremacist plot. People that don't care about non-whites, care even less about animals.

This is part of a response to anonymous Internet natives in another forum a few years back that dared to call me white on the inside.

"...And I am no potatoe (A.K.A. apple). My definition of a potatoe is a native american that is only concerned with fighting for certain native rights such as trapping animals, not for food but so the fur could be sold to some wealthy old lady in Paris.

Potatoes do not fight to protect the eagles but rather claim a right to kill them. Potatoes adorn themselves with dead eagles to win money in contests.  [And now I will add that they fight for the right to kill baby seals claiming it is part of our traditional ways.]

To be fair lonewolfbunn, baby seals are only adorable before the skinning. Afterwords, they're pretty yucky!

Seriously though. remember the case of the Makah 5? They decided to kill a whale to preserve their cultural identity. Greenpeach and the Sierra Club and a bunch of hippies all decided that uh-uh, no way are you natives going to do that. But they did! Were they potatoes/apples?

I feel that it is important to make a distinction between Inuit and settler hunters. Inuit have an inherent right to hunt seals, settlers do not. The destruction of marine ecosystems has come because of settler hunting and the obvious mis-management of fisheries by the DFO.

Keystone- You don't understand what white-supremacism is. It is not just the scary group of neo-Nazis that Hollywood tells you about. White supremacy is a system of (non)thinking that creates a hiarchy of race that puts white at the top. Makes life a hell of a lot easier for some at the expense of others. You know, like if a white person crashes a plane into a federal building they are "misunderstood" if a brown person does the exact same thing it's grounds for all out war. You might be white and may not have noticed this going on.

ETA: and yeah, nice post 500.

keystone:

"Now, if you had made an argument that suggested that the EU has ignored the impact this will have on the Inuit, then you might have had some validity. Incidentally, while I don't talk to white supremacists, I have yet to meet a Conservative that wasn't 100% in favour of the seal hunt. So, I sincerely doubt it's a white supremacist plot. People that don't care about non-whites, care even less about animals."

I think that keystone has laid the foundation for a balanced perspective in communications hereabouts. Although the thought that income is to be gained only from sales to Conservatives (and that resonates) is a bit unsettling.

My reasons have nothing to with an animal being cute.  I don't consider eagles cute even when they're chicks but I do not support slaughtering them for their feathers.

The difference there is that one whale could feed a tribe of 500 people for a year.

Now if they were slaughtering them in mass numbers to sell the oil to perfume manufacturers or some other vanity market such as makiing seal skin jackets then I would oppose it.

I actually don't agree with many things Green Peace and most of the fanatical stunts PETA pulls off.  I am not at all one of their supporters.  I grew up on a reserve eating wild meat and cute things such as bunnies.  But I know the difference between killing for food and killing for greed.

I was raised that when you see an eagle, you pull out your peace pipe - NOT a rifle.

So killing one whale to feed 500 people for a year is OK (somehow I don't think it would feed that many for so long, but anyway...). Wouldn't killing 500 seals to feed 500 people be acceptable? And making coats out of sealskin is environmentally friendly. Plus that FN communities earn money on the open market to buy trucks and satellite tv and take vactions. I really don't see why there is controversy around FN seal harvesting.

And baby eagle chicks are cute.

Shit! Hit the wrong button...

IMO killing seals for food is fine and if every year the babies are not killed off and left to rot on the ice then there will likely be seals to hunt for meat many generations from now.  The EU ban on baby seal fur IMPORTS in no way prevents the Inuit from eating as many seals as they like.  In fact it will help the Inuit in the long run because there will be more seals.

Why... because it will rot if you bury it?  How friendly is it to the environment if depletes a species to unsustainable numbers.  They do not reproduce so fast they will never run out.  That's what people thought about the Buffalo and they were nearly hunted to extinction.  And as someone pointed out earlier in this thread that what happened to the cod.

The original post was not about the EU trying to prevent FN seal harvesting for food and none of my posts suggested anything against FN seal harvesting.  This about the EU not wanting to buy baby seal fur anymore.

Then you suggested we should kill as many seals as we can so we can sell them to the Ch1nese and then tried to back up your position by saying that it would be racist to stop FN's from doing so.  There is no ancient tradition of a mass slaughter of baby seals.

Basically the arguments from LWB and others is that FNs can hunt only for personal food. There may be a market out there for seal coats (China) but that would taint FNs with "commercialism". Sounds like "the man" telling FNs how to live their lives. Haven't wee seen that before?

"Inuit have been hunting seals and sustaining themselves for food, clothing, and trade for many generations," said Mary Simon, the group's president. "It is bitterly ironic that the EU, which seems entirely at home with promoting massive levels of agri-business and the raising and slaughtering of animals in highly industrialized conditions, seeks to preach some kind of selective elevated morality to Inuit."

I would guess the Inuit traditionally used most of the baby seal when they killed them, and they probably didn't hunt on an industrial scale, taking hundreds of thousands in a given season.
There is something that rings false to me about the idea that killing a warmblooded sentient creature then discarding the better part of it - which must include a useful quantity of nutritional meat - has much to do with long established Inuit cultural practice. I cannot believe such a  modern, European attitude to Creation does not transgress traditional Inuit thrift and efficiency.

Nor do i believe the Inuit traditionally hunted baby seals for commercial gain, 'to buy trucks and satellite tv and take vactions'.

I think of how the Plains bison were wiped out in a couple of decades, after thousands of years of careful management of the stock. Where the local FN based much of their life around the buffalo, using its bone for tools, its meat for food, its guts for thread and material and its hide for clothing, the animal was driven to extinction simply for the commercial value of its hide. We have all seen the photographs of prairies dotted with the rotting carcasses of skinned, abandoned corpses, surely a criminal waste of resources. That is more like what this seal hunt reminds me of.

By all means take the seal for sustenance, but if you're bashing them over the heads and selling them to the Chinese fashion industry for a new I-pod, we-e-e-e-ll, I just see western cultural values at work and don't understand why this should warrant special treatment. 

I do not support the factory farming of animals either, obviously.

OK, suppose the whole seal is used. The skin goes to make green, environmentally sustainable coats and the bits that aren't eaten by people caould be used for pet food or fertilizer. Nothing is wasted. Then it be alright for FNs to take part in the wider global economy? Right?

The choices you would allow Fns are:

1. The Inuit move south to jobs.

2. Jobs come to places like Whale Cove or Cape Dorset. Not likely...

3. Live like their ancestors from 500 years ago without modern conveniences the south takes for granted.

I'm suggesting they also have the choice to stay where they are, make a good living off the land, and pass on their cultural traditions to future generations. You seem to have a problem with that.

'Long as the seals don't do a fadeout like the buffalo, it could help head off cultural extinction, ET.  But I seriously think that TV would have to go too.

"Make a good living off the land" for what, five years when the seal population is so low there aren't even enough seals left to feed their families.

Good long term thinking there ET.  Very similar to the lawyers attempting to make some big bucks suing the EU and supposedly representing the Inuit best interest.

LWB.

What's your answer then?

As for long term solutions there are many that do not require depleting natural resources such as seals in order to accommodate some fashion trend in Ch!na.  Once the fashion trend moves onto necklaces made from the testicles of the last few tigers I suppose you would support suing Ch!na because they don't want to buy "environmentally friendly" baby seal fur anymore.

The Inuit are highly intelligent (likely due to countless generations of a diet rich in brain-food such as fish) and these days most are very well educated.  There are endless possibilities to provide an income so they can "buy trucks, satellite TV, and take vacations". [quoting E.Tamaran]

Since someone is in such a hurry for a response I will post some of those endless possibilities in my next post.

WTF?

I want to make it clear that these are not my words nor are they Merowe's(sp?).  They are ET's

[so the Inuit can] "buy trucks, satellite TV, and take vacations".

Nice try though.

What exactly pisses you off so much about that statement?  
There is ample evidence that any people who have for generations had fish as a staple in their diet have higher IQs than those who's main staple was something like pork.

This includes people of every nation on every continent so don't even attempt to claim I am being racist or any type of supremacist.

Hi lonewolfbunn.

Making generalizations about an entire community of people, with or without data to back it up, is something I do not recommend you do. This includes "positive" generalizations such as the one you made about the Inuit. Please desist.

The oil refineries and diamond drilling companies have proven that huge and numerous items can be transported to the far North.  So this means that small and light items such as computer parts could feasibly by transported there.

What I was getting to by saying that the Inuit are well educated was that they are more than capable of technology related work such as building computers or solar panels FOR EXAMPLE.  I know the cost of living is high up there and high wages would be required but building electronics commands much higher wages than let's say going out to skin baby seals two weeks out of the year.

Sure, if the whole seal was used you'd have a better case. I really should be careful wading into this subject, I'm anxious not to offend. Obviously its up to the Innuit to figure out their best course and I don't envy them their lot, straddling two extremely different cultural models. It may seem superficial but just the optics, of taking only the skin, for sale, and leaving the rest of the corpse - not to mention all those unhappy seal mommies - seemed to mirror the worst of modern industrial 'extraction' practices. And these practices while creating lots of 'wealth' do seem to be degrading our planet. And I can't believe the northern FN can't come up with something more progressive than that. How many  seal pup pelts do you need to buy a truck?

And here is this talk about 'jobs'. Why are you so eager to go down that path? It's taken me years of deprogramming to get past the filthy concept. You really want to plug into the system, somewhere near the bottom, break yourself to the routine of wage labor? So you can buy a bunch of shiny toys? You're welcome to it, I just can't believe there isn't some other way. What that is, I cant say I'm afraid.

Why on Earth would you think that the manufacture of electronics is better for the environment than hunting? Also, you realize that you poo-pooped Inuit hunters selling fur to China but you seem to think that Inuit people working in factories building computers and solar pannels is a good thing?

Here's the thing. Most Inuit (indeed most seal hunters, Inuit or settler) do not just take the skin and leave the carcass to rot. People just keep saying this because it makes it easier to oppose seal hunting.

At the end of the day the Inuit may sue whomever they like and they may hunt whatever they like managed in whatever way they decide is appropriate. If you're not Inuit than it's not your place to tell Inuit people what they should or shouldn't do based on racist myths of what "traditional" practices of the Inuit are.

A couple of facts to counter the hyperbole and myths.

Aboriginal people have a charter right to hunt, fish and make a moderate living off same.

R. v. Marshall

http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/al/hts/tng/ecn/scd/scd1-eng.asp

Seal populations are actually increasing.

Facts About Seals

http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/seal-phoque/reports-rapports/facts-faits/... [69]

Certainly aboriginal people strive to use and consume the entire harvest. The ugly pictures posted by Green Peace and the like come from Newfoundland and Labrador where the majority of hunters are non-native.

The seal harvest is not that much different than our slaughter of cows for meat, meat by-products and leathers.  The only difference is that the harvest of seals does not depend as much on maintaining the herds, feeding them, taking them to market etc and it seems to me it is a much more sustainable farm industry than cattle ranching. Over-grazing in the middle-east is largely responsible for the desert-like conditions in many regions. With the persistent droughts we have seen in the midwest Nort America in the last decade there is as great a possibility that over-grazing will decimate the soil. Already we see that because of the combination topsoil is eroding there at an alarming rate.

I digress.

The seal harvest is sustainable and has been sustained by the aboriginal people for eons. Our intereference in it is what causes the imbalance, since it is the settler mentality to profit at any cost - especially disregarding evironmental ones. I believe that Canadians should start purchasing seal clothing to help those people who need seal harvesting to make a moderate living.

I assume you're talking the middle-east of North America? :)

Commercial hydroponic soybeans in the arctic? That sounds highly environmentally un-friendly especially when compared to sustainable hunting and fishing. My point, which you have proven, is that people from the South really have no good ideas on Northern development. That's why our opinions on what the Inuit should/shouldn't do are superfluous.

BTW: thanks for the formating tip LWB.

No. The Middle East Asia.

Tholmas Berger is "from the south".  Besides condemning the Mackenzie Valley pipeline nearly four decades back, he has (more recently) said in another report that the people of Nunavut need to promote higher education so that top-level administrative personnel in local government are born in "the north".  Not sure if his ideas are considered "superfluous" hereabouts?

LOL      Wow... I can't believe you thought I was serious about that.

Maybe I should have said packaging granola bars with recycled fish scales.  And I think it's possible you may have proven my point.

If you're not going to take this seriously then why don't you GTFO?

I didn't think that you we serious about that. I did think that you were serious in saying that Inuit people should develop a commerical high-tech manufacturing sector.

Explain to us again why you know what is best for Inuit people?

Yes, his "ideas are considered superfluous hereabouts". Do you think that wheeling out a white male NDPer who has had some slightly less colonial things to say is a real zinger? The Inuit can and will do whatever they want however they decide. They don't need reports from Berger or economic development plans from Lonewolfbunn. Southerners should focus on how they are melting the arctic and all the resources that have been stolen without compensation.

I can see this as being one aspect, sure. But I still approve of moving towards a global society that doesn't see everything that walks, swims or crawls as fair game to use how ever they see fit. And definitely not to call people with a different viewpoint racist hypocrites.  

Maybe some people do consider this a step. Not necessarily towards vegetarianism but maybe stepping back from the immense mining of the planet. Hey, it's not like any species have been pushed into extinction before through greed or that there aren't problems with the fish farm industry.

LeT:

"Yes, his "ideas are considered superfluous hereabouts". Do you think that wheeling out a white male NDPer who has had some slightly less colonial things to say is a real zinger? The Inuit can and will do whatever they want however they decide. They don't need reports from Berger or economic development plans from Lonewolfbunn. Southerners should focus on how they are melting the arctic and all the resources that have been stolen without compensation."

You are condemning "northerners" to be under the thumb of "southerners" who have been schooled in administration. You should really look into Berger's cv, LeT. "Slightly less colonial things to say," is a soppy thing to say under the circumstances. Berger's report on requirements for self-government was commissioned by Iqaluit.

Maybe you're just not reading what you are arguing against before you argue.  Or is it comprehension?

If it is the latter I will help you.

Quebec Innu Declare War on Development

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2629540

"Innu from 5 Quebec communities said yesterday they are willing to block every development project in northern Quebec and Labrador until all their aboriginal rights including the caribou hunt are recognized.."

Innu are not the Inuit, i'm not sure how your post is related NDP.

Actually he is saying that Inuit need "higher education" before they are allowed to play a role in their self-government.

Sorry, I must have got posts mixed up. I thought that you were arguing that the lawsuit was wrong-headed because it would only benefit lawyers in the end.

LeT:

"Actually he is saying that Inuit need "higher education" before they are allowed to play a role in their self-government."

If you allow highschool grads to head government departments you are liable to wind up with insoluble administrative foulups. I believe that Iqaluit understands that it is not a matter of disallowance, just plain old competence.

In BC we have a long tradition of allowing used car salesmen to run government departments.  We even elected a high school dropout as Premier.  Does the north need a different standard?  

It depends on what is meant by higher education.  If you mean community college level courses in Public Administration taught by northerners and brought into remote communities then by all means some "higher" education might be a good thing.  If it means sending your best and brightest to the south for education in their formative years when they should be absorbing their own culture I am not sure whether the outcomes will be positive for northern communities. 

Of course that is for the people of the north to decide for themselves both as individuals and communities.

"Cute Things R Us"

 The idiocy here is that  the seal pelt import ban is based on emotion and not anything real - SEALS ARE CUTE. "Cows, not so much, go ahead and slaughter them however you like".

Someone made the point about European over-fishing. Good point! Hypocrites.

The Civil Service, Krop '51, is not elected, thank Gaia. And Iqaluit would rather have native sons and daughters in charge of the books. Why is that a difficult concept to come to grips with? Folks across the north trust Berger. Why not folks hereabouts?

Sorry George but without a link  to Berger's actual words you have me at a disadvantage since I have not read his report and have no idea what nuances are included in it. I think over the last two decades many provinces having ruined their public services by hiring MBA's and layers upon layers of HR people so I don't really know what kind of education you mean and what civil service model they may import from the south.

Berger has always had my respect but that is different than agreeing with him when I am only presented with a chat room precis.

just google up "Thomas Berger on Innuit education" and see a whole host of articles and papers, krop

There may be a perceived difference in that cows have long been domesticated. Seals are wild animals. Seals also have the appearance of being defenceless. Like deer, their only defence seems to be escape. The Gulf of St. Lawrence seal hunt, in its scale, does create some gruesome visuals. Do we know of any other seasonal mass killing of animals (not fish) in the wild on that scale?

I am not Inuit but I doubt that their hunting traditions and rules are much different than the FN traditions I am familiar with.
Where I grew up there is mainly deer but our hunting rules were the same as other FN in moose country where I also have relatives.  

According to our hunting rights we don't have to abide by the hunting season of "sport" hunters but we do have unwritten rules.  After females have given birth and while the fawns are dependant on the mother's milk you do everything you can to avoid killing the mothers.  So we certainly do not go out of our way to kill the babies.

Killing the males is fine but any hunter that came back with a visibly pregnant doe or lactating female would have absolutely nothing to be proud of.  

I remember as a child watching an old home video in the band hall of a orphaned fawn being bottle fed by one of the elders.  The mother was shot by someone on the reserve.  There were twin fawns but only one survived.  There was footage of it as it grew bigger.  It was the reserve pet.  It would run around from house to house and people would feed it.  Even the dogs knew to leave it alone.
Me and the other kids that were there were told about the time of the year we only kill bucks.  One kid needed an explanation about why we don't kill mothers and fawns.  The answer was simple, "Because it's just not right."

Now there are those among us who claim to be native and will try to convince the public that my people are barbaric and have no human decency.  I don't know what tribe in hell they are from but that is not the case.  At that time my father's reserve was very poor and almost everyone was dependant on deer meat but no one killed fawns no matter how hungry they were or because baby deer meat is tender like veal.

I am not Inuit but one thing I know for sure is that they also have sets of values that are passed down as those of my father's people and of my mother's people.  

Another thing that is universal amongst First Nations is respect for living things.
If anyone wants to claim that that is a "racist myth" then do your best.

This is old but it is still true

"Cute Things R Us

 The idiocy here is that  the seal pelt import ban is based on emotion and not anything real - SEALS ARE CUTE. "Cows, not so much, go ahead and slaughter them however you like"

No, acutally, it would seem that the bulk of the idiocy is being provided by you.
Can you honestly see no differences between the practices of the seal hunt, and the beef industry?

Wild vs domestic?
3 month old vs fully matured adults?
Using for pelts vs using for food?

FYI: Many of the people that oppose the seal hunt, also oppose the practices of factory farming, shark-fin soup, the veal industry, foie gras, chicken batteries etc.

I realize it's fun and convenient to generalize and sum up all opposition to the seal hunt, as a bunch of pre-adolescent Hanna Montana fans, who don't want the little fuzzy seals hurt, but it simply isn't accurate.

The Europeans are not doing this out of racism, or love of fuzzy things, they are doing this because many of their citizens have voiced opposition to the practice, and it does not economically hurt them. Similarly, many Canadians voice oppostion to whaling, and our government supports that position, because it does not economically hurt us, and it is an easy stand to take. We not oppose the whale hunt because we hate Asians and Norwegians.

Yes, it is somewhat hypocritical for Europe to ban seal prodcuts, while allowing shark-fin soup, bullfighting and factory farming. But the presence of a greater evil, does not make the presence of a smaller evil irrelevant.

I'd be careful calling seal hunters "evil"...

Incidentally,

The EU is supporting a worldwide complete ban on the bluefin tuna.
It should be noted that the EU is the major supplier of bluefin tuna (Japan is the main buyer).

So economically, this really hurts the EU, but they are doing it despite that.

I think this shows that the EU is putting its money where its mouth is, and that its other oppositions are not as hypocritical as people have suggested. This ban will result in the loss of billions of dollars to EU fishermen.

http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/canada/article/479179--upping-quota-for-...

Upping quota for seals 'a little stupid' in slumping market, fisherman says
Veteran sealer says upping quota for East Coast hunt won't fix slumping market

by MELANIE PATTEN
March 16, 2010

Since last year, slumping market conditions have kept Jack Troake's sea legs planted firmly on dry land, away from the ice floes carrying seals off Newfoundland.

The veteran fisherman from Twillingate, N.L., said he doesn't intend to head out this year, either, despite an increase in the allowable catch for the East Coast commercial seal hunt. "To us sealers, it sounds a little stupid," said Troake, who has more than 50 years' experience hunting seals.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced Monday it's increasing the hunt's quota by 50,000 harp seals.

But Troake said there's no sense in raising the quota now, given a market where seals only fetch about $15 each - a steep drop from the record $105 per pelt in 2006...

...

...Environment Canada said Tuesday the ice cover in the Gulf is the lowest since it began keeping records, which dates back to 1969. The Gulf is normally about 80 to 90 per cent ice-covered at this time, but the ice cover this winter is closer to five per cent. [emphasis mine LWB]

The situation is similar off Newfoundland, where ice has only formed off the tip of the Northern Peninsula. Ice typically extends as far south as the approaches to St. John's this time of year.

Sea ice is vital to the life cycles of seals in the North Atlantic. During late winter, harp seal females deliver their pups on ice floes, and early ice breakup could increase mortality rates.

The federal government has not announced a start date for the seal hunt in the Gulf or the Front, though it usually begins this month. "

News from ©The Canadian Press, 2010

So given the decline of the ecosystem that supports the seals, what is the justification for raising the quota?

__________________________________

One struggle, many fronts.

This is essentially the Canadian government's way of thumbing its nose at opposition to the seal hunt. Canadians don't like foreigners telling them what they can or can't do. Similarly, Spain doesn't like others telling them that bullfighting is cruel and savage, and Japan doesn't like being told that whaling (even for scientific reasons) needs to be stopped.

Unfortunately, the anti-sealers often engage in the falsehood that the seal hunt is not sustainable, but given the record number of seals, it obviousls is. This of course, pales significantly to the perpetual stream of lies issued forth by the DFO.

I don't support the mass slaughter of any living species to fulfill the demands of international corporate markets. Being raised in Central Newfoundland, I certainly didn't make many friends among the outfitter friends of my family, by openly expressing my opposition to a livelihood that depends on catering to the needs of American sport hunters, even though the moose population was as thick as fleas.  Actually, they were downright violent to my suggestions, but it doesn't change the fact that there's no purpose to it except for sport killing. I support harvesting for traditional local subsistence trade only, support an inshore fishery instead of factory freezer trawlers, and support strict overall management and oversight, bearing in mind jurisdictional acknowledgements, of all the remaining natural resources that have not yet been rendered extinct through our actions. For far too many decades, the European settler inspired culture of crony self serving politics, ignorance, excessive greed, and non-existent management have combined to ravage the North Atlantic ecosystem. As for the anti-sealing celebrity cliques, they are simply misinformed to a great extent, and their efforts misdirected when it comes to cruel harvesting practices. They do have a point however about the extent of corporate demands upon individual species, which can only lead to excessive profiteering and extinction in every case without intervention.

Because - It's just not right...

At least the government has stopped trying to associate the killing of 20 day old seals with First Nations tradition.  There is no tribe on earth that has an ancient tradition of killing nursing babies of any mammal.  

If an animal is killed for the meat... it is easier to kill them without causing them much pain. When a white seal was killed for the fur shooting them would ruin the fur.  Many of them are not even clubbed over the head because there is more chance of getting blood on it.  I seen footage of a seal slaughter and many of them were being SKINNED ALIVE.

Now if a hunter is killing a mature seal for the meat they obviously don't skin them alive.  The Inuit hunters also know that if they only go around killing the babies - it would only be a matter of time before the seal population is depleted.

I am not Inuit but I doubt that their hunting traditions and rules are much different than the First Nations traditions I am familiar with. Where I grew up there is mainly deer but our hunting rules were the same as other First Nations in moose country where I also have relatives.  According to our hunting rights we don't have to abide by the hunting season of "sport" hunters but we do have unwritten rules. 

After females have given birth and while the fawns are dependent on the mother's milk you do everything you can to avoid killing the mothers.  So we certainly do not go out of our way to kill the babies. Killing the grown males is fine but any hunter that came back with a visibly pregnant doe or lactating female would have absolutely nothing to be proud of. 

I remember as a child watching an old home video in the band hall of an orphaned fawn being bottle fed by one of the elders.  The mother was shot by someone on the reserve.  There were twin fawns but only one survived.  There was footage of it as it grew bigger.  It was the reserve pet.  It would run around from house to house and people would feed it.  Even the dogs knew to leave it alone.

Me and the other kids that were there were told about the time of the year we only kill bucks.  One kid needed an explanation about why we don't kill mothers and fawns. 

The answer was simple, "Because it's just not right."

At that time my father's reserve was very poor and almost everyone was dependant on deer meat but NO ONE killed fawns no matter how hungry they were or because baby deer meat is tender like veal.

I am not Inuit but one thing I know for sure is that they also have sets of values that are passed down... One thing that is universal amongst First Nations is respect for living things.

An open letter to the Prime Minister

Prime Minister of Canada the Honourable Stephen Harper,

I must say that the decision of the current Canadian government to promote and advocate for the seal slaughter has brought shame to all Canadians.

The impression upon the world is that Canadians are primitive, uncivilized, and malicious.

It also gives a true impression of a government that permits it's citizen's to be in such a state of desperation they would club thousands of helpless animals to death just to feed their families.  Shame on us all electing such a government.

Until this changes you certainly don't have my vote.  The eyes of the world are upon you and you are being held completely responsible for Canada's shameful slaughter of seals as the mothers bring them out of the water to nurse.

Like monster's from a child's nightmare, men are sent by you to drag babies from mothers so they can club them to death.

Think about that and visualize it... because it is a nightmare you are directly responsible for making a reality.

Sincerely,

LoneWolf Bunn

copies to:

Hon Michael Ignatieff

Hon Jack Layton

Hon Rob Moore

Hon Peter Van Loan

The Globe and Mail

National Post

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/959370--scientists-call-for-c...

Please note the paragraph in the article where is says the seal population has increased 30 times since the 1960s.

That might answer Scott's question from back at #91.

Leave the situation as it is and those babies won't be dying from a club, but from starvation.

6079 ?    By your formula - humans should just annihilate any living thing being that might compete for food.  Not to mention that it was humans that overfished the cod into extintion in the first place.

Bear in mind that we are not talking about a threatened species, but one whose population has exploded in the last few decades, and that there are a number of species - like deer - which have increased in number since the wild prairie has been turned into agricultural land. 

But within reason and humanely as possible, yes. We kill in order to control everything which competes with us for food and space. It's no different for seals than it is for mice, bedbugs, slugs, dogs, cats and other creatures. 

Sorry, but that is how it is.

I do understand the balance... My main point has always been to protect the little ones. 

What kind of bald evil monkey would wait like a vulture for a baby animal so it can club it and skin it - sometimes while it's still alive...  Why would you want to put a bloody old club on that nice clean fur?  It's all about money right?  And of coarse the kind-hearted men that choose this profession would never do anything to cause additional pain... Right?

I guess "a matter of time" means thousands of years or something.

Um, I think the idea is to more humanely kill a living thing that's going to die a grisly and miserable death while competing for food that's just not there.

Plenty of predators go for babies. Do some research on sea turtles or and see how many of them make it from the egg to the sea. 

Or how many young penguins get scooped up by seals, for that matter.

I don't mean to imply that mass starvation and disease aren't natural.... they are. I remember a winter about 12 years ago when about a third of the deer did not make it through. 

I believe it was the same year when we had no berries at all because of a late frost. We had bears coming right into town and breaking into houses. It's natural.

But control and human intervention can often be more humane, whether it is in the form of putting out hay during the winter, or killing part of the population to save the rest from a grisly fate.

I was talking about human cultures that DIDN'T kill nursing MAMMALS.

Talking about modern humans catching up ETHICALLY to cultures of the past.

The cultures which helped eradicate the mammoth, and plenty of other large land mammals?

I mean no disrespect to cultures which have managed to strike a balance, but there are plenty - past and present - which outstripped their resources the same as our current civilizations seem to be doing. I visited a couple of dead cities in the U.S. southwest not too long ago.

But I think this is a different question. I see nothing unethical about a preventative cull, or about hunting within a balanced system. And as I said, I think inhumane hunting practices are a different (though related) question. No, I don't believe in causing an animal any more pain than is necessary.

Even Stockwell Day's ancestors couldn't have managed that feat.

Continued over here.