13 April 2009

Baby Seal Slaughter

I can't believe that the Canadian government still condones the brutal killings of baby seals. For my entire lifetime, I have railed against this horror, and still it goes on. Since fur is not even worth the energy of an argument, except to incredibly ignorant, greedy, and shallow people, the only "reason" I've ever heard is that it's the livelihood of the hunters. Obscene waste, greed, and complacency have become the livelihood of Detroit automakers and many bankers; that certainly doesn't mean it should go on unchecked.

These are BABY animals, sometimes just born. They are helpless, in the most literal possible definition of the word. It can't even be called a "hunt." They just walk up and beat helpless, harmless infant animals to death, and that's if the seals are "lucky." Sometimes they just skin them alive. My God.

Do you realize that these animals feel pain? Unimaginable fear? Surely, if you're among the policymakers, you've seen the practice with your own eyes, or at least plenty of footage of it, to have made any decision about it. Do you not hear the screams of the babies and their mothers, who fight to help their young and are sometimes killed for it as well? How can anyone with a soul let this continue. And yes, I meant that as a statement, not a question, because there really could never be an answer.

Nothing, nothing, nothing should ever go on just because "that's the way it's always been." There has never, in the history of language, been a weaker, less valid, more cowardly, and frankly less intelligent, reason for any practice. This is simply a gross abuse of our role as stewards of this earth and everything in it. It is torture. It is murder. It is WRONG.