AR-News: Article and poll Humane? Canada seal hunt centers on question

[jim robertson]

Is Canada right in allowing seal hunts?


  Yes, it keeps the seal population under control and helps locals make a 
living

  No, it's inhumane and unnecessary

  Can't decide


Vote to see results

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4608053/


Humane? Canada seal hunt centers on question
Video of hunters used in battle between government, activists

By Miguel Llanos
Reporter
MSNBC
Updated: 1:57 p.m. ET April  23, 2004Ever since Canada enacted reforms to 
make seal hunting more humane, the annual seal hunt —this year's quota is 
350,000 pups — hasn't gotten much attention. But is the reality living up to 
the reforms?


Activists monitoring the hunt say it's not, and use video of hunters to make 
their point. Canada says it is, citing a report by animal vets to back its 
position and noting that officials are ready and able to crack down on any 
inhumane hunters.

Most hunting is for young pups, whose pelts fetch more on international 
markets than seals more than a few months old. Canada's biggest reform was a 
ban on hunting pups before they shed their white fur, usually about 12 days. 
Images of those cuddly pups became icons of the 1970s protests against the 
hunt, which takes place on ice floes across eastern Canada.

The debate today comes down to this: Do the young seals die a quick, humane 
death before hunters skin them?

'Swimming reflex?'
Roger Simon, who oversees the hunt for Canada's Department of Fisheries and 
Oceans, says activist video purportedly showing seals being skinned alive is 
actually showing unconscious or dead seals going through a "swimming reflex" 
— involuntary movements that mimic swimming. It's akin, he says, to seeing 
the final seconds of a chicken running with its head cut off.

"It's impossible to skin a live seal, or a conscious one," he says. "Can you 
imagine trying to skin a live animal ... it would scream and claw."

Besides, he adds, why would you "when you can kill it in one second."

The International Fund for Animal Welfare, which has monitored the hunts for 
years, counters that hunters often are in such a hurry that they club or 
shoot as many as possible before going back to check their condition and 
skin them.

"Mr. Simon cannot dismiss every instance simply with reference to a swimming 
reflex," says IFAW science advisor David Lavigne, a former zoology professor 
at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

Video turned over to Canada shows scenes like "pups being skinned alive and 
reacting by doing things like lifting up their heads and crying in pain or 
trying to grab the knife with their front paws," Lavigne says. "These 
behaviors are not a swimming reflex, these are wounded animals. This year we 
filmed one seal, left wounded in a pile of dead seals, crying out for nearly 
an hour while sealers stood nearby."


Simon doesn't doubt that incident but adds "you cannot describe the whole 
industry based on one observation. The fact that some people commit 
violations is the reason we have fishery officers, helicopters, and 
surveillance vessels out there to enforce the regulations.

"If you see a video where a pitcher is trying to bean a hitter would you 
conclude that this is a fair portrayal of Major League Baseball," he asks. 
Canada's 12,000 seal hunters should "be judged on the vast majority of 
sealers doing their job properly, not on some selected clips from a video."

Canada has issued 322 violations over the previous five years, most of them 
for small infractions.

The activists say that in that time they've documented on video what they 
feel are 660 serious violations of Canada's marine mammal rules.

IFAW adds that, while it would prefer to see all hunting stop, it would be 
satisfied with what it considers compliance with the law. "A subsidized hunt 
for baby animals is like paying people to kill kittens with a claw hammer," 
says IFAW spokesman Chris Cutter, "we are simply asking Canada to abide by 
and enforce its own rules. ... "A quick death is much preferred if that's 
inevitable."

Vets' reports
Skinning live seals would violate Canada's marine mammal rules as well as 
its criminal code, which makes it a crime to willfully cause "unnecessary 
pain, suffering or injury to an animal or bird."

full story:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4608053/






Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to 
embrace all living creatures.            Albert Einstein

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