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 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-01-31 06:12am 

Seafishing seems a bad idea to me unless we're talking about bred fish. There's an enormous number of freshwater and saltwater fish breeders which allow humans to eat fish without adversely impacting the fish populations (they're badly hit by the ocean pollution already), no need to engage in industrial scale fishing of wild fish which inevitably ends up with overfishing, fish population depletion and the like. The worst examples are shark and whale populations threatened by Chinese and Japanese feeding habits.

So I am more or less firmly against hunting and fishing wild fish as a form of hunting. Breed your stocks and eat from the product of your own industries instead of impacting naturally occuring populations.

As I'm more or less a pig eater much more than a cow eater (utilitary reasoning, not moral: cows make methane, pigs don't), this is not a problem I am really against solving by cultural transformation. Western beef habits are bad, no question about it.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-01-31 07:10am 

unsustainable dammit.

unstainable is a very different and completely inappropriate adjective.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-01-31 12:28pm 

Let me be more precise, because you’re being simplistic and naive: would you be prepared to risk the extinction of some livestock species as an alternative to them being farm-raised for food? Once we no longer have any use for them because we're eating plants and pills, you see.

Without cattle farming, I don't believe that domestic cattle won't be extinct in North America within a generation. It's plausible that they don’t have the means to survive in the wild, they're individually too dangerous to humans to be allowed near urban areas, their current ‘habitats’ would be obliterated to make room for the crop we would replace them with, and there is no money in giving a shit.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-01-31 06:37pm 

It's fascinating that you feel that humans should not be able to hunt, but that the systemisation and industrialisation of slaughter barely rates a batted eyelash. You said that as we created the excess we have a 'right' to it, but wasn't creating the excess in the first place an ill act? I mean you mention that some people feel this should be limited anyway, but I don't think you're addressing the fundamental act here, which is creating some more or less purely so we can kill it. I fail to see how this is actually less moral, or whatever, than hunting. You try to justify it on the basis that we have no business fucking with what we haven't created, but beef cattle did not spring fully formed from the brow of Zeus. Obviously we can't really go back and change what we did in the past, and yes we are the masters of our domain, but I think you (and everyone else for that matter) are really glossing over what cattle farming actually is. I don't think arguments about methodology are very convincing because of this - yes, a captive bolt pistol is a very surefire way to induce unconsciousness for the exsanguination process, but when you get down to brass tacks it's still mass killing.

Lagmonster mentions that the only alternative for domestic cattle is essentially extinction, but we're the ones who created a situation in which either a hundred million cows are raised to die each year or an entire species dies out. I mean obviously as the population grew we had to feed everyone somehow, but frankly I don't think we'd be having this discussion at all if seals weren't cute. People mentioned earlier that seals are quite a bit more intelligent than the average cow, but I don't really see anyone giving a shit about the thousands of pigs which were slaughtered in the last hour. Reaping the benefits of this system is no more moral than actually personally killing an animal for your benefit. Sport hunting is most definitely fraught with its own issues, but if you make that decision to go and kill a seal for its various products, you are at least owning that decision and taking responsibility for doing it.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-01-31 07:30pm 

Actually, we don'traise cattle merely to kill them - we raise them to EAT them. Killing them first is actually kinder than the obvious alternative. It should be noted that wild predators, such as lions, do not always wait for the prey to die prior to starting their meal.

The way you state it, it sounds as if you might find it acceptable to raise animals for food and not kill them. I think most folks, even most vegetarians, are OK with milk and eggs on a certain level, but even there enormous cruelty can be involved.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-01-31 07:40pm 

The distinction isn't relevant to the discussion as in this context it's not like people are going out to club seals for laughs. If we were comparing cattle farming to fox hunting then the distinction would probably be important (I don't really know much about fox hunting but my impression is that it's just for 'fun').

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-01-31 11:11pm 

@Lagomonstor - Naive and Simplistic is thinking domestic cattle would NOT go extinct in a generation? mmm.

There's a few obvious counter arguments here, but they're all slightly conflicting with each other.

1) They wouldn't go extinct - it's mass consumption and the feedlots I'm after, not cattle grazing or the dairy industry. Possibly specific breeds that cannot live without a constant huge calorie intake to support their growth hormones would not be able to adapt, but cattle as a whole? still there baby.

2) Even if now longer economically viable, some people will keep them as pets or in small amounts to maintain future breeding options, like quite a few heritage breeds. If that seems unlikely, check here: http://albc-usa.org/

3) and even if they did go extinct, because they simply couldn't live outside of an incredibly wasteful artificial intensive farming system, who cares?
I mean really, this is a wholly artificial breed that we've created. If we have the right (via creation) to kill or use as we see fit, then we have the right to let the species die out. If we don't have the right to kill or use as we see fit, then we shouldn't be eating them.

Or do you think we have the right to eat them, and a duty to keep doing so?

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 12:47am 

There's a fundamental logic problem with that last bit. Either you accept that we have a right to do with them as we see fit or you do not. If you do accept that we have that right, there's no moral imperative to stop eating them in the first place. We could let them die out instead just as easily under that viewpoint, but if we're operating under that viewpoint, why would we want to?

Note: It does seem obvious to me that extinction is an unlikely result. My issue is with your logic failure.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 03:58am 

hmph. you got me there.

of course, i'm arguing we don't have the right to kill them for unnecessary luxuries, so I guess it'd apply for anyone who wanted to argue that we can eat them but shouldn't let them go extinct.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 08:14am 

Creating an excess population of an animal is evil? I guess you could construe the argument in such a fashion because the creation is only made for the sake of future killing. However, why is a short life as future food not preferrable to no life at all?

Um... what if a way to make them die without suffering is found? How is that inferior to hunting, I beg your pardon? Hunting, which is killing living beings in a violent, painful and unpredictable manner for no real reason other than entertainment.

I already said that with cows, I do oppose the whole process. It is just ecologically unsound, and the preference of beef over other types of meat is a stupid cultural thing.

You are killing it in an especially violent and unpredictable manner for a non-essential product. I agree that cattle slaughter is basically the same, but consider for a moment that cattle slaughter strives to be neither violent and painful nor unpredictable, though the product is still non-essential. Seal fur is in any case much, much less essential than meat.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 09:14am 

well, something I've been consistently arguing since the start of the thread is that no, meat is not MORE essential then seal fur as neither is essential.
meat is much much more useful, but it's not essential. in fact, you just said the same thing in the penultimate sentence.

So since it's non-essential, we're talking degrees of non-essentialness here, but I wouldn't consider either to be valid reason to inflict suffering either through the animal's life or in the manner of it's death.

If some absolutely painless way of killing was developed that could be used easily, surely that'd make hunting better then farming? Animal gets natural life until it's lights out time.
And while the method of seal killing is definitely more haphazard and thus crueler then a restrained bolt, I would point out that modern cattle killing methods are, well, modern. 30 years ago people didn't look at what was being done and say, it's cruel and haphazard, we should ban the beef industry, they just developed better tools.

Is there a reason the same reasoning cannot be applied to the seal hunt? that they need to develop specialist ammunition or better marksmen or go back to the hakapik only? (After all, being hit by the business end of a hakapik is almost exactly like being hit by a restrained bolt)

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 09:38am 

"Non-essential" to whom? The advocate, the protestor, the consumer, the hunter, the producer, or the seller? The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans maintains that the seal hunt is an economic mainstay of some northern communities. Are you oversimplifying a complex issue?

And you're not necessarily correct that seal hunts are superior to practices in cattle farming in that the latter alone "strives to be neither violent and painful nor unpredictable". DFO again maintains that the seal hunts in Canada are conducted in a manner appoved by veterinarian and legislative bodies as humane, organized, and responsible. If you have an objection, don't you think you should take it up with the Marine Mammal Policy of Canada and those charged with its approval and enforcement?

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 09:55am 

And which have a 20+% of failure rate in ensuring a quick death. Which has been posted already in this thread.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 11:52am 

Since wikipedia and DFO conflict, I actually went and read the EFSA report maddoctor pruned off of wikipedia - for as long as it took me to get to the year of adoption. That report was prepared in 2006. In 2009, Fisheries and Oceans amended the Marine Mammal Regulations, now requiring that all seal kills follow a "three-step process" ensuring a humane kill. What's more, their own reporting showed a, quote, "very high level of compliance with all elements of the Marine Mammal Regulations, including the provisions regading humane harvesting", and they describe the changes in monitoring and enforcement of the regulations that are supposed to address the concerns of people like maddoctor.

It is a bad plan to go in for the creationist folly of using outdated or missing information, failing to consider that the reality may have changed and envisioning a world that may no longer exist.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 12:15pm 

These amendments were not done to help the animals, they were done because the EU considered banning seal products due to cruelty. The EU still banned the import on grounds of cruelty to the animals.

Even moreso, the hunt is pretty much economically inviable, seeing as how:






And there is video evidence showing how the regulations are ignored in practice:

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 01:01pm 

The point you're skittering away from is that there is a difference between 2006 and 2009. Realistically, I am only of the personal opinion that public opinion was at least one of the weights on the scale when the decision was made.

I didn't say it was a goldmine. I said that some communities in the north rely on the hunt to bring in income. You didn't refute that; you just pointed out that "one sealer" thinks it's shitty income and that it's costing a lot of money to meet trade regulations (and government isn't really averse to wasting money on more government). The argument in question was over the term "non-essential", where I was trying to make the argument that it's too complicated an issue to take only the point of view of the consumer.

I can't watch that where I am, but since I'm sure you must have, do you think it shows verifiable evidence that the Canadian government is not sufficiently acting in enforcing its own regulations? Or does it look like a standard PETA-style shock video introduced by a protester organization, that has been verified by no unbiased official source and presents a significantly slanted perspective on the overall hunt by selecting a few events that either look worse than they are or represent the few infractions that were not caught? If they were actual infractions, do we know whether they went unpunished or whether they were actually documented or caught later on, and the penalties applied? Do we know anything other than what the author, herself the head of the protester group's Seal Program, is saying, or are we just quoting the involved parties at each other?

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 01:40pm 

Allegedly.



I do not follow. Why should some small communities matter here? If I bring up a small community that makes a living by farming threatened species, surely the welfare of an entire animal species outweighs that of a few communities?



I think the infractions in themselves may be just a few instances, but the fact that they are of this nature:
- intentional killing of a protected blueback seal
- spearing a live, conscious seal pup in the face with a steel hook
- seal sliced open while alive and conscious and left to struggle in the bottom of a boat for several minutes

shows that at least on the part of these sealers, there was a massive failure in training as these things should have been illegal even before 2009. It further casts serious doubt on the efficiency of enforcement of these policies, given these things are illegal and should have been recognized as illegal by any of the people partaking or watching these actions.




The refusal of the sealers to even look at the footage speaks pretty strongly for itself.



If what she said was not true, why is there not a retraction posted on HuffPo? Why is there not another viewpoint there defending these actions?

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 05:29pm 

No. We selectively bred them over the course of thousands of years to be our creatures. We also use them for much more more than food. We use their skins as leather, their meet is food, bones in adhesives. Hell, cow and pig parts are even used in actual industrial applications. We do, for the time being, need them. Now, that does not mean factory farming is justified. It is not in any way shape or form.

The main issue is one of Telos or purpose. A wild animal does not exist for us. It owns itself. Moreover nature has intrinsic in addition to instrumental value. It is a good in itself that need not be justified on the basis of human use or need. A cow is... a product of human culture. Outside of ethical obligation that the cow not needlessly suffer, it does in fact exist For us. We made it, and the sole reason that cow exists is so that it could be used.



Oh, but we would. I would be at least, and have.



I actually do have problems with that. In fact, my pork consumption is almost non-existent (basically, if I do eat pork, it was an animal that was raised and slaughtered using a natural diet, humane methods, and where the animal lived a full and happy life.



If it were just a few guys going out and taking adult seals, that would be one thing (I dont have a problem with indigenous peoples...being predators. That is fine). Instead, it is the industrialized slaughter of the next generation of said seals.



It is an economic mainstay because the fishermen in those regions wiped out fish stocks in the north atlantic. The aquatic ecosystem of the north atlantic ought not suffer for their error, which is exactly what will happen if they remove seals, and something they are on course to doing.


I have already addressed all of that.

Clubbing something to death is not humane.
Organized... yeah. It is kind of industrial.
Taking 300k baby seals a year is not at all responsible. Read the motherfucking thread.

The regulatory agencies of any country are heavily lobbied. They do not hand down regulations. They negotiate those regulations between stake holders, and the end result is that quotas often bear no resemblance to what would actually be a sustainable harvest, or for that matter, humane.

For example, take a look at the carton of eggs in your refrigerator. Somewhere you will find a stamp certifying that the chickens were raised in accordance with proper animal husbandry standards. Now, take a look at this:

Battery Cages

The eggs coming from those chickens are certified.

Or you could look at tuna stocks.



That is the result of these "responsible" quotas. There is absolutely no reason to think that seals are any different, particularly because catch quotas now are the same as catch quotas that brought a much less stressed seal population into free-fall.

Would you like me to mathematically simulate seal population fluctuations for you? I can do that.



No, they are going out to kill them in order to supply a status symbol to rich people. Not much better. On the other hand, cows are killed to provide food, clothing to a huge portion of the population, glues, eyes for anatomy class, and materials needed in the industrial manufacture of a LOT of other things.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 08:15pm 

why is everybody acting like the rest of the seal isn't used either?

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 09:08pm 

Because only native americans actually use the rest of the seal.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 09:47pm 

Seal oil (like fish oil, but sealier)

http://www.dpagold.com/

http://www.gmi-canada.net/

--

http://www.montrealfood.com/eatingseal.html





http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthn ... urope.html





http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... -seal-meat



really -that took less then 7 minutes, including getting distracted by an article about life on venus.

OF COURSE all the parts of the seal are used. money is money. You think the 400 uses for bits of cow were developed due to people feeling guilty about waste?

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 10:03pm 

No, actually seal oil is not commercially viable nor that much sold, same with seal meat and the other products. Heck, even the price of a pelt has crashd to a quarter of the value.

I also would like some sources as to how many of the hunted seals are actually used in that way.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 10:06pm 

well, the pelt crash was due to the EU banning it, not because actual demand dropped. It was steadily increasing before that. I'll go off and see if I can furtle some use statistics but the web search is mostly clogged with PETA stuff.

just found this:

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 10:43pm 

ok.
http://www.harpseals.org/resources/news ... l_2011.php



The deal with china i quoted from an old Guardian article earlier also seems to have not materialized.

looking at the DFO's own current plan:



(please note these are not INCREASEs in the quota, but allocations within it)
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/seal-pho ... 15-eng.htm
there's some interesting data within the appendixes re seal population. Looks like extinction of the fishermen or the seals within 20 years.

BUT, what is written in the plan re the need to develop 'value added' projects suggests to me that the byproducts from the seal are NOT currently used fully. sadly.
Since nothing can be sold to USA, EU or Russia(?) I can't see how they'd ever find a market, even if the products were good.

damn. i thought the industry would be better then this. point conceeded.

 Post subject: Re: Clubbing seals and eating steak (PG)

Posted: 2012-02-01 11:21pm 

I know you conceded but...

Omega 3 fatty acids are also found in cold water fish, which incidentally are also the main source for pills of the stuff, easier to get in quantity, and cheaper. You can also find the stuff in nuts, various vegetables and red meat such as grass fed beef, and lamb. There is no need to get the stuff from seal, the market is saturated without seal, and thus it is not economically viable to get them from seal.

Seal blubber, and in fact, most blubber products, have been largely replaced in the perfume industry by synthetics, which are, again, easier and cheaper to get in quantity. As a result... yeah. Not economically viable. So no, those bits are not actually used. The Canadian government is trying to GET them to be used in order to prop up an unsustainable industry which is used as nothing more than a welfare system for fishermen who have already fished their coastal waters clean of all commercially viable fish, and now want to do the same thing to seals.

Ah, so I see they increased their population-destroying quotas again. How nice.