Seal Cull in Alaska

[johntheplamf]

On One hand, It is a totally barbaric spectacle, seeing Thousands of Seal Cubs being cracked over the skull with a stick/axe. On the other hand it is a legal cull of 30,00 seal cubs to help preserve dwindling cod numbers, which is the only income at that time of year for the coastal towns in the area.

Who's right and wrong in this??

[El D]

I don't know, in some situations I feel there is no right or wrong, only necessity. I suspect there are dubious reasons at work tho.

[delilahcat]

When you 'cull' animals you kill the elderly and weak animals, not the babies and nursing mothers. And you do it humanely. Not only do these murderers use the most barbaric methods to kill cubs, they often skin them alive.

Seals were around long before man, there were always plenty of fish before humans intervened. As In a Pickle says, these arguments are used to try to justify the carnage, the killers make a vast amount of money from this barbaric practice.

[Guinevere]

Which is the species that has caused most damage to eco-systems and the planet as a whole?  Humans. 

I believe situations like the seal cull are only treating the symptoms and not the cause of the problem.  And won't get us (or the planet) anywhere in the long run.

Also, supply and demand: Stop eating cod everyone!

[jno]

current cull is in Canada, I believe, so for once the Americans can be exonerated. It's those nice Canadians.

[gastwo]

I always find it amazing the furore and fuss that the annual seal cull seems to generate

Very little publicity in the tabloids about the thousands of little cuddly lambs and doe eyed calves that are slaughtered every week - the press dont go into abattoires and show the sometimes slapdash killing of these animals, or the bleeding to death of animals that some ethnic races require. And how about the intensive killing in poultry factories?

I lived in Newfoundland some years ago, and the income obtained from seal skin and meat was the only means of living available to the inhabitants of some of the outports.  No industries, fishing stocks decimated, and a woefully inadequate Government benefit service.

As usual the press give a biased, one-sided over sensational report.

[delilahcat]

gastwo, are you saying that because some animals in some abattoirs are not killed as humanely as possible it's okay to kill newborn seals and nursing mothers in the most barbaric way you can think of? Since when did 2 wrongs make a right?

When you say that you 'always find it amazing' that there's a fuss made about this, well I find it amazing that anyone can defend such cruel practices. Rather than saying it's okay to do this because other practices aren't perfect, why can't we try to find more humane ways of dealing with things?

Let's face it, the only reason that the baby seals are killed in this horrific way is because morons with money think they look good in seal fur, and they don't give a toss about how it's obtained.