HSUS films dying seal for an hour

"Deborah" <deborah@invalid> wrote in message
news:t600031uima8m52cncrceto1p75v7iilcd@4ax.com...

> Because sealing is facing a ban on exports. How many cases of "mad
> cow disease" did Alberta have when the USA banned imports of Canadian
> beef? What did it do to the Canadian cattle farmers?

Sealing is not a human health risk, hence these two scenarios are not even
close to similar.

> I caught an interview of a Dutch activist on The National not long
> ago, and she said the seals are not being harvested for food
> consumption, like the livestock killed at slaughterhouses are. The
> seals are being harvested for fur. She said the carcasses are being
> left behind. The news anchor interviewing her was apparently not in a
> position to refute that, because he didn't.

Commercial sealing is not intended as a food fishery, the marketable item is
the fur. If the meat can be utilized commercially that is a bonus for the
industry.

> Europeans have had an issue with harvesting animals only for their fur
> for some time now. So if the sealers ARE using the whole animal, that
> would be a good thing to let the Europeans know.

If that is the case they should stop buying furs. It just happens that the
EU is the biggest market for furs in the world, currently worth $5 billion a
year. Evidently, Euros like their furs as much as anyone - 85% of those
furs come from captive animals raised solely for the purpose of fur. If the
Euros are concerned about harvesting animals solely for fur perhaps they
should first set an example at home.

> I live on the west coast where seals are plentiful and there is no
> seal hunting here. I've never seen seal meat at the grocery store and
> I know of no one who has ever eaten seal meat. Maybe it is too fatty
> and oily for us, or something.

There is nowhere the population of seals in the B.C. as there is in Atlantic
Canada. The harbour seal population of B.C. is approximately 60,000. The
northern fur seal population is approximately 900,000 for the entire coast
from California to Alaska. The numbers are just not there to support any
kind of sustainable hunt, which explains why you won't see local seal
products in B.C. stores.

> But seal meat has long been part of the Innuit diet, and there are
> plenty of Innuit involved in the Atlantic seal hunt. Maybe they, at
> least, can say they use the whole animal.

What utilization level is expected from the farmed-fur industry? E.g., what
do they use mink carcasses for?

I'm just trying to understand why the seal hunt is being held to standards
that don't apply to the countries that are opposing the hunt. The only
explanation I can come up with is that seals are useful tools for
politicians looking to score cheap brownie points with voters, and for ARAs
to raise money to pay their sky-high salaries.
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