This video will break your heart.

[nytemare]

http://www.hsus.org/video_clips/caught_on_camera.html



I have no idea what type of asshole it would take to club a poor baby seal. I can't believe this shit still goes on. I was just trying to find out if dogs evolved from seals, or seals from dogs, and this stuff came up in my search.

Humans are such assholes.

:cry: :cry:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

1. The asshole who kills them is less of an asshole than

the asshole who wears them.

I'm not condoning it. I think viable employment opportunities need to be presented to seal slaughterers, so they can afford to take care of themselves and their families.

But the fact is, if there's a market for seal fur, there will be butchery.

[nytemare]

That is the truth.

According to these sites, there is a big boycott of many Canadian seafood companies, because the sealers spend the rest of the year as fishermen for these companies, and the actual sealers make little. Red Lobster sells seafood from Canada. The seal kill provides only a few million dollar profit, while the seafood industry is several billion dollars.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

6. And I wonder how much they're overfishing...

The state of our oceans is scary as hell...

[nytemare]

9. I saw a headline somewhere yesterday that by 2048

we would no longer be able to eat seafood.

Wish I could find the link.

[BreweryYardRat]

15. And back in 1200 or so, Norway...

...forbade its lords from giving the peasants lobster too often.

What a difference 800 years make. Technology progresses, but we don't get much smarter or wiser.

[Courtesy Flush]

19. It may not be marketed honestly

Maybe the label doesn't say what kind of fur it is. If it does, the consumer is the guilty party.

[AlwaysQuestion]

2. Yes, we humans are too often less than human

I am unwilling to watch your video clip cuz I would find it too upsetting, especially since there is little I can do about it. Still, I agree with you whole heartedly that harvesting baby seals is a heartless job that I couldn't participate or indulge in the spoils.

At the same time I commisserate with those who've been doing this for a living for gawd knows how long. They know nothing else. While we're supposedly living in more enlightened times, just look around the world and see how so much we are NOT. I look at the face of that seal pup and am aghast that anyone could bludgeon it to death. However, I also know that there are hundreds of millions of children who die terrible deaths due to starvation, horrific diseases and adult abuse. If we as a species can't eradicate human suffering, God help the "lesser" animals.

[nytemare]

3. I imagine how many starving children could have food

if condom usage was taught, and condoms were provided to people in deveolping nations.

Then, less children would be born with AIDS, less children would be born period in a place with few resources as it is.

I suppose common sense just isn't so common.

[AlwaysQuestion]

10. I couldn't agree more

You are sooooo right. I swear that common sense (something that was once innate in all of us) is going by the board. Too many people today choose not to sift information through common sense (which is comprised of many components) preferring instead to look outward for direction and answers. I can't believe the number of people I run across here in my own little world who show no concept of what even common sense is. Their pastors, priests, whatever tell them what to think about just about everything. Of course I live in the bible belt, so what can I expect?

[nytemare]

11. I think the mob mentality is what got us to this point.

Us vs them and xenophobia at one point, many years ago, helped us survive. But, with technology, all it does is divide. It no longer really serves a purpose. We need to evolve past Us vs. Them.

One day, I will write a journal entry on that, but I haven't felt creative enough....lol.

[AlwaysQuestion]

13. You only THINK you're not creative enough. Enough already!!

Hmmm, somehow I think you and I and many others here are on exactly the same page. But what to do, what to do with those other strange beings who haven't caught up with us--like the pro-Bushco idjuts. Alas it is those creatures which are the cause of my xenophobia!! And I suffer from it big time!! :) The rest of the world I have no problem with!!

[nytemare]

14. I suppose I am just not in a creative mood.

I agree with you, thoroughly. If only people would think!

[AlwaysQuestion]

16. Okay, you're off the hook.......temporarily

But be back in the groove soon and write that special journal entry

In the meantime, it was great agreeing with you!! :) :)

[nytemare]

17. Thank you!

Happy New Year to you!

[AlwaysQuestion]

18. And a very happy New Year to you too!!

Ya gotta know I'm getting old and senile when I insist on having the last word. Yep, I'm slowly (well, perhaps not so slowly) working back to my childhood. :bounce: :bounce: And now I'm going out to play.................

[BreweryYardRat]

4. Seal hunters are on my list of "people to brutally slaughter if I ever have the chance."

Not sure how much that helps.

And seals probably evolved from dog-like creatures, much like whales and dolphins did.

[nytemare]

5. Seals are so fucking cute.

and, coincidentally, the word for seal in French is phoque, pronounced like fuck.

I am reading that seals, dogs, cats, and weasels all came from a similar ancestor. Pretty interesting.

[BreweryYardRat]

7. Evolutionary biology is fun, isn't it?

And you're right. Seals are adorable.

[nytemare]

8. I want a pet seal.

But, I am gandering the air condition bill alone would be more than I can afford.

:D

[GreenTea]

12. Man, it does....