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Originally Posted by Theodoric
It must be the right time of the year as yesterday's Guardian had a full page adert with the headlines, "BOYCOTT CANADA SAVE THE SEALS". It continued in this calm, reasonable fashion with such phrases as "brutally clubbed or shot", "skinned whilst still conscious", "the slaughter is subsidised" and so on. In fact, it would seem that they were so overcome with emotion that they didn't notice that they had misspelt tourism. The obligatory, large photo of a brutal Canadian clubbing a helpless seal seemed a bit on the blurry side; perhaps there is only one photo that is recycled every year.
I'm not sure of the ins and outs of this practice; as I understand it, the Canadians claim that the seals eat too many commercially valuable fish. Their opponents, naturally, deride this and say that it is more to do with Canadian governments bowing to pressure from fishermen. Mind you, considering how Canada catastrophically mishandled the almost total collapse of the Grand Banks cod fisheries, there is probably more than a grain of truth in this. For anyone who wants to delve deeper this site was given in the advert.
In my more cynical moments, I can't help noticing that for an animal to be protected by expensive, full page adverts in the national press, it needs to be mammalian, furry and cute. I am still patiently waiting for the first full page advert calling for a ban on the cruel, year round slaughter of rats. The're mammals, they're furry and they are probably more intelligent than seals. Unfortunately, they lack that crucial attribute, cuteness. Ah, well, they'll probably still be around long after the human race has disappeared from the face of the planet. |
Glad to see the other ppl aren't as swayed by Guardian's view point which, as a Canadian, I find laughable.
First, I agree the Canadian government panders to fishermen for votes, but then the liberally-minded one party-state ( yes, LIBERAL government! Left if you will) couldn't organise a p!ss up at a pub.
As for the Grand Banks, they are not in Canada's 100 or even 200 mile offshore international limit. Traulers from all over the world fish there. The moratorium on Cod catching is still in effect while not having completely stopped fishing, has at least made a token jesture towards culling fishing, is still more than any other nation has done.
So when is it exactly that the fishing in the North Sea is banned, or has it already been over-fished by Brits, Nordics, and Northern Europeans?