I highly doubt the Can. government will actually do anything positive for the seal's, as they depend on the fish industries money hand outs.

I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---

The responsibility for the deaths of those three French sailors (from the French Iles de la Madeleine, St-Pierre and Miquelon, a bit south of Newfoundland) perhaps lies with the Canadian coast guard, or whatever branch of the military it was, who were towing the French sailors' boat, and may have mismanaged something.  So, Watson would have done much better to comment that the Canadian coast guard is a danger to both man and beast, and leave it at that.

As for the Sea Shepherd vessel Farley Mowat, and her Captain Cornelissen, it is hard to see that they are guilty of much, save perhaps for violating that ridiculous license regulation.  They should not be held guilty for sailing close athwart to the smaller vessel of the seal-slaughterers, if Cornelissen had warned the sealers of his intention and purpose.

And they probably should not be held guilty for breaking ice that seal-bashers were standing on, if the seal-bashers were at some distance, and if the intention of Cornelissen was to interpose his vessel between that of the seal-bashers and the seals, and not to harm the seal-bashers on the ice.

And even if that was his intention, there is a fairly commonly accepted legal principle, that one who comes to the defense of an innocent victim and kills the violence-bent assailant is innocent of murder.

But that was not obviously Cornelissen's intention at all.  So the Sea Shepherd people would seem to be neither in too deep legal trouble, nor in too difficult ethical territory.

That said, I disagree a bit with my friend JavaEarth, with whom I tend to agree on everything related to animals, regarding Sea Shepherd's approach in general.  Their conduct a few weeks ago, with the Japanese whalers near Antarctica, was praiseworthy, a bit, but also a bit questionable.  So here too, they are not doing our cause much good, in the long run -- regardless of the publicity right now -- , if they make it plain that non-violence is not a major priority, and that commitment to non-violence is an impediment to meaningful, effective activism.  That only turns us animal-lovers into heartless monsters, in the eyes of many.  (Yes, I know, we are there already.  : ( )

And that, of course, is an ancient ethical dispute, relevant not least to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.  He too was rejected by many, for insisting that the way forward has to be one of non-violence.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

In the Southern Ocean, Sea Shepherd is the only group actively confronting the Japanese Whaling fleet and those confrontations directly saved many whales this season, and it is the only group doing anything meaningful against the baby killers of Canada.  Non-violence against humans is not the priority, saving other species and ecosystems from violent humans is.

Dealing with the pro sealing killing community is/was very hostile and difficult. One particular young woman told me "Seals are the pigs of the ocean and every one of them needs to be killed". That was a mild opinion! in comparison. - This type of hostility was over the internet thousands of miles away. So now imagine what the Sea Shepard's are going through.  -

In retrospect everyones actions are never 100% prefect, but I am proud of the sea Shepard for doing something, versus nothing.


I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---

Did you know that Martin Luther King, Jr went to visit and spent some time with Mahatma Gandhi. The God father of non-violence.

Yes, I agree non-voilence is the better way to go. But we can all say that in theory, however the hard part is to have inner peace and strenght to carry it throught. Thats the hard part! One that I hope to learn. - Not quite there just yet!

I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---

The hunters are largely natives, from very remote coastal communities.  They've been thrust into the modern economy, and they're trying to make a living in the traditional way.  They can't very well go work at Walmart instead -- for many communities, the only way in and out is bush plane.  If you disapprove of sealing, okay.  But it's hideous to put the seals' lives ahead of the sealers.  What would you have them do instead?

By the way, would any of you be okay with violence against the southern cotton farmers who massacre adorable weevils every year?  Do you value a weevil's life above a farmer's?  If not, why?

PS to Grist: I'm sure you know that seal pups haven't been hunted in decades.  Why did you feature a pup image with this article?

No it isn't.  It's disgusting to put the lives of members of a grossly overpopulated species (i.e., humans) ahead of another species.  And it's immoral to kill anything you don't eat.  For these two reasons alone, the seal hunt should be ended.

The native people worth supporting are those who still maintain their traditional lifestyles, which is very few of them.  Native people who want to earn money by becoming as ecologically destructive as civilized people are just as bad.

Re farmers and weevils: agriculture is not natural, so farmers cause all sorts of problems.  No one on this site has advocated violence against anyone where any alternative is available, but the following is the answer to whether farmers are causing significant problems.  Other considerations are, are weevils native?  Is cotton?

Secondly, many Canadians do object to the seal hunting. - It is not as you point out "Most of the opposition to the seal hunt comes from the US, not Canada".

Also you seem to justify violent acts with traditional occupation. If we all continued doing the same thing, and justifying the cruelties, we would all still be caveman and cavewoman. - Life is constantly progressing. Your priority should be how can be make this a better future for yourself and the world around you. Not lets support a barbaric way of living.

Please do not justify cruel seal (or any animal) hunting by saying you have no choices. We "specially" in the developed countries do! I doubt majority of peoples jobs are the same as their great grand fathers. - its about progress - life moves.

If economics is the problem here - as it often is - Does it mean that every seal will be killed in the hope to fish more? Because the fish population is decreasing. - so really according to your suggestions every seal should be killed?

I am not happy that the seal hunters died. -  wrong place, wrong time, - wrong club!


I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---

The infamous "Bad Housekeeping Seal of Disapproval" with the 50's mom on the logo holding her nose, could this help discourage fur?    

These stickers can be useful for reminding others to clean up after themselves.  Cruelty free clothing is soul clean.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

>>"We "specially" in the developed countries do!"

Canada is not "America Light".  Look at a road map, and see where the roads end.  Then look at how many towns, villages and even cities lay far beyond any roads.  Then please let me know, once you've figured it out, where these folks should work, if not via hunting.  Many have chosen to allow strip mining and oil/gas extraction on their land.  Shoulda stuck with the hunting.

That is the reality of northern Canada, even if it's hard to imagine.  

I will leave the anthropological arguments to konklarii.  Of equal importance (I think) is the ecological one I wish to make.

I have had a similar discussion before with caniscandida about the populations of dear in dense urban areas of the US east coast.  In both cases we have to choose the cause of death of these animals.  If there is a hunt they will be killed by a hunter (which probably sucks a lot for them).  If there is no hunt the population will grow to a certain point and then will be limited by STARVATION or PREDATION (which also probably sucks a lot).  The animals will still die, but for one reason or another human societies will be worse off.

Whether or not we take an active role, we are aware of the event and the conditions that cause seal deaths, and we have control over them, which makes us responsible EITHER WAY.  While you might personally feel that the act of taking an animal's life is distasteful (I certainly do), sticking our heads in the sand and stopping the hunt will NOT improve the lot of these animals.

Saying it will is a bit like saying we SHOULD buy puppies from pet stores (from puppy mills) because they look so sad in their little cages.

Bikes can save us!!

You wrote "Shoot some Elders" - erm,, yeah, no thanks, I am not into shooting anyone! - Bringing in some humor before the serious talk.

Konklarii tell me do you think that these communities are going to continue living their lives hunting and fishing for hundreds of years to come?

No, because the fish will disappear and they will have no other source of income. - so basically these communities will have to adapt just like every other profession has.

Do you see any other outcome? I do not. So why not start looking at different sources of income. I know there are many people that want to end the seal hunting and if these communities need help, - those same people will help them. Maybe you do not believe me, because you do not believe in change and progress.

Helping a community that wishes to end seal hunting, would be an honor. My skills: - teaching on-line, marketing, web business development.

But see people like you hinder change, you do not see an alternative solution where one human can help another. - sad really!


I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---

I just wonder if their tactics will produce much good in the long term, with regard to changing and shaping people's anti-animal opinions, however effective they may be in the short term, with regard to saving the lives of some individual seals and whales.  I hope I am wrong, but it seems that Paul Watson and Captain Cornelissen may have accomplished no more than to harden many eastern coastal Canadians, and French Madeleine islanders, in their totally wrong and destructive opinion that all of us outsiders who oppose the seal slaughter are evil, and that they are the beleaguered minority with justice on their side.

And possibly that happened as well regarding public opinion in Japan, following the mission of the Steve Irwin.  Tactically, I think the Steve Irwin people (and Paul Watson himself was captain that time, wasn't he) were more successful on balance (perhaps, but it is hard to measure) than the Greenpeace mission in two things only, which had nothing to do with violent or near-violent activities: they brilliantly won the support of most Australians, including the coast guard; and they were able to plant a global positioning device aboard the Japanese mothership.  The illicit boarding, and the pelting with stinkbombs, and the spraying with ocean water, were fine tactics too, which I for one do not consider violent.  In fact, as much as I like Greenpeace, I think they may be too squeamish in condemning the Sea Shepherd people as being committed to violent activism.  The only tactic that Paul Watson has deployed (allegedly), of which I disapprove, is trying to ram a Japanese vessel.

In the case of the seal slaughter, there has not really been a big example of non-violent activism yet.  Partly that is because of the remoteness of the fishing harbors, which is where a protest would have to take place.  Logistically, it would be difficult to transport many activists even to Saint John's or Port aux Basques, Newfoundland's larger ports.  But perhaps there is hope, and we should be working on it.

Non-violence is not an end in itself. And non-violence is worth nothing if it is a synonym for inaction, and failure to disturb the unacceptable status quo.  Gandhi, and Martin Luther King in Alabama, were not doing nothing.  What we need to work on is how best to learn from their examples, for the sake of abused animals.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

It is true that harp seals are presently not endangered; the IUCN rates them as a species "of least concern," regarding their conservation status.  Unlike the white-tailed deer, however, they are not destroying any ecosystems.  And they certainly do not deserve to die.  Protesting the seal slaughter therefore should not be presented as a conservation issue.  It is an animal-welfare issue.

To Konklarii:

• the boll weevil analogy makes little sense.  We generally do not assign to insects the same moral status that we assign to mammals and other animals with more plainly developed sentience.

• there is nothing wrong with Grist's image of the white-coat seal pup.  The seals who are being slaughtered are only a few weeks older than the white-coat newborns; and they suffer at least as much when they are chased, clubbed, hooked, dragged, thrown, hung, and skinned.

The members of the Sea Shepherd crew were on the Farley Mowat when she was rammed!  How is that their offense?  What law did they break?  NONE!  Any one with eyes in their head can see that the video of the Coast Guard ship ramming the Farley Mowat was intentional and meant to be intimidating.  Thankfully, the Sea Shepherd crew members are of the highest integrity and will not be intimidated by brutes.  Captain Watson was right when he stated the loss of the seals was a greater tragedy...what harm has a seal done?  Especially a BABY?  Now ask what harm these club-weilding barbarians have wrought.  The world could use more seals and fewer sealers, and I for one am not at all sad for the deaths of the sealers.  I pray more meet that fate, so they leave the innocents in peace.

The only tactic that Paul Watson has deployed (allegedly), of which I disapprove, is trying to ram a Japanese vessel.

Trying?  From what the Sea Shepherd folks themselves proudly say, they used the Farley Mowat to ram the Oriental Bluebird (a fuel resupply tanker) using the "can opener" with intention of sinking her.  They may say that they were "just driving their point home" but there is no benign use for the "can opener".

The "can opener" is a device fitted to the Farley Mowat that is intended to rip open another ship's hull at the waterline.  In the following link, you can see the article, along with Sea Shepherd's own photographs, which shows the spike mounted to the side of their ship as they approach.

Farley Mowat attacking the Oriental Bluebird

Dig around, and you can also find video footage from both parties on YouTube.

That incident ended any belief I had that Watson was a conservationist.  Antarctica has such a fragile ecosystem that they make you sterilize your boots before you can set foot on the land/ice from the boat (that's what was required of me when I visited).  

Attempting to rip open the hull of a fuel tanker in the heart of Antarctic waters is absolutely irresponsible and unforgivable for any person, and doubly-so for someone claiming to have sea animals' health and well-being at heart.  Thankfully, the hull of the tanker was thick enough to resist puncture, avoiding a smaller Exxon-Valdez scenario in the Antarctic.

And yes - that is the same Farley Mowat that's been harassing sealers' boats (and has recently been evicted from a Canadian port) except this time, they have upgraded the "can opener's" punch by installing it on a hydraulic ram.

Gee, I can't imagine why any sealing captain would be agitated when the "nonviolent (but physical) protesters" get within 100 yards of them on a ship being actively developed to rip open hulls.

Let us keep our vindictiveness under control.  We do not really want anyone to die, do we.  Punishment is a destructive activity, much to be avoided; and capital punishment is immoral.

MiaMarcakis,
we do indeed discuss the meat industry and factory farms here in Grist.  I think about the billions of chickens every day.  But we need to proceed step by step; hopefully we can make progress, if we concentrate a bit on animals, such as young harp seals, for whom people tend already to feel some sympathy.

TikiMask,
the ENS article that you link us to is in fact supportive of Paul Watson.  The "can opener" seems to be a relatively harmless device, which can do little more than scratch up a ship's paint job.  It is a silly accusation that you make, that the Sea Shepherd people would have been willing to create an Exxon-Valdez incident near Antarctica, or anywhere.

I do not know what I remember reading, that the Farley Mowat tried to "ram" a Japanese vessel.  As I said above, I need to get a better grasp of history.

It should be noted that Watson always proceeds his actions with a clear communication of his demands and intentions.  That is consistent with LadyVader's assertion, that the Sea Shepherd crew "did nothing wrong."

It should also be noted that the Farley Mowat is reported to be larger than the vessels of the seal-slaughterers, and therefore presumably more threatening to them than it was to the Japanese whalers.  There is nothing wrong about that, either, in itself, but it might have some ethical significance.

I am puzzled that the Sea Shepherd people, such as Cornelissen in the ENS article, like to say that their anti-whaling mission is not about protesting whaling -- which it plainly is! -- , but is about "defending the law" regarding what activities may or may not be undertaken in a particular piece of the Southern Ocean.  Hopefully they are not using that kind of silly talk to explain why they are trying to rescue the little seals.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

If they would like to, I would support it (As long as they follow best science on quotas, and so on).  But as you say, fish and game are disappearing.  

"I know there are many people that want to end the seal hunting and if these communities need help, - those same people will help them. Maybe you do not believe me, because you do not believe in change and progress."

Not at all!  I hope that there are people who want to end the hunt by helping the hunters, but they haven't spoken very loudly yet.  Believe it or not, I'm no great fan of the hunt itself.  I just hope to make hunt opponents aware of the social complexity, so they can understand why the hunters do what they do.

"But see people like you hinder change, you do not see an alternative solution where one human can help another."

Goodness no. :-)  I would like to see the kind of change you're talking about.  If Morrisey or Paul McCartney want to fund sustainable industry for these communities (ecotourism, maybe?), then I'm all for it.

The HSUS.org is encouraging the Can. government to make these areas as tourist spots. Like the whale watching.

However, the government is a not putting a ban on the seal hunting/clubbing. Due to its financial and political influence from the fish industry.  So as long as the fish industry supports the government and other people fight in the defense of seal hunting - the government sees no point in changing the status quo of killing thousands of seals each year.

That's where people like you and I come in. We need to decrease/stop the demand for these final fish products. Plus, I suggest you start opposing the seal hunting, and I'll start looking for groups that will help the fishermen financially.

I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---

Farley Mowat's "A Whale for the Killing," which I am reading now, is a great primer on the ocean-related sociology of the people of Newfoundland's south coast.  The main story is about the cruelty inflicted on a stranded finback whale (or fin whale, or "finner," as Mowat calls them: Balaenoptera physalus, the second largest animal on Earth at present) trapped in a tidal pond.  But the long-range circumstances that he describes pertain to all kinds of relations and exploitations, including old traditional fishing, new inventions, modern whaling, modern fishing, and "sealing"; and he explains marvelously well how technologies, economic decisions and attitudes evolved so as to doom all together the big fish, the little fish, the whales, and the seals.

So in light of the complex history that Mowat presents, my earlier statement, to the effect that the issue of the seal-slaughter is solely an animal-welfare issue, not a conservation issue, is too simplistic.  Right now, the IUCN is presumably right, that there are still plenty of harp seals (whatever "plenty" means).  But Mowat makes clear that the decision to hunt and slaughter seals is an intricate part of a system that has already endangered big fish, little fish, and whales, in the North Atlantic.

By the way, this is the same Farley Mowat (duh!) after whom the Sea Shepherd vessel is named.  The Wikipedia article on him says that he "frequently visits it" to encourage its mission.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.