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| No | 26% | 49 votes | Total: 187 votes | |
| Yes | 74% | 138 votes |
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Add to FavoritesThe Canadian Government should not outlaw the seal hunt. To do so would severely escalate the problem, not solve it. Seals are not as endangered as many people are lead to believe; there are far more seals now than there have been in previous years. Seals are not hunted excessively, and the seal hunt helps control the population. If seals were not hunted, the seal population would increase exponentially, causing many problems for both the seals and for humans. If the seal population increases, the fish populations that seals hunt decrease and this makes it harder for fishermen to catch fish and make a living. Also, as there will be fewer fish and many more seals, the seals themselves will start dying of hunger as only a few of them will be able to catch the food they need to survive. Not only will this affect the seals, but everything else that eats those fish will suffer, and in a chain effect the entire ecosystem is affected.
The seal hunt cannot be compared to other endangered species of which hunting is outlawed, such as of the elephant. In those cases the elephant is endangered, but with the seal hunt it is actually the fish the seals hunt that need protecting and to protect the fish the seals have to be hunted.
The seal hunt is nowhere near as bad as it is portrayed. The seal hunt and the seal hunters are vilified only because these animals are cute and cuddly. As a result many people feel it is not right to kill these cute creatures. However, the fish stocks that seals hunt are largely depleted. Are fish not creatures as well? Can they not feel pain? For some reason I don't see anyone protesting to protect the fish. I guess they just are not cute enough. Sorry fish, as ironic as it may seem we are still going to allow the seals to eradicate you.
Banning the seal hunt will only create a poaching industry. Right now there is a demand for seal products, and as long as there is a demand there will be someone who tries to meet that demand. With the Canadian seal hunt, the hunt is far more controlled. The seal population is kept in balance with its environment, and the methods by which the seals are killed are also restricted to more humane ways. If the hunt was outlawed, this control would be lost and the seals that are killed would suffer far more.
As it is, the methods used in the hunt are humane. It may seem cruel to club the seals to death, but at least the body is recovered. Quite often the bodies of seals and other marine animals that are hunted are lost when they are shot as the body becomes lost in the water or beneath the ice. If the seal is not dead yet, it has to suffer and be in pain for a long time; and another seal now has to be killed since the first one was not recovered. I think it is far more humane to kill one seal, perhaps a little more violently, than to kill several seals and watch their bodies go completely to waste.
The seal hunt also provides much needed income for small communities that depend on the seal hunt. Many of these communities have largely lost most of their incomes from fishing. Whose rights are more important here? The people of these communities who depend on the hunt, or the cute and cuddly seals.
The Canadian government could institute new legislation and provide more humane ways for the seals to be killed, such as by some form of quick electrocution similar to the methods used to kill livestock, but banning the seal hunt is out of the question.
Outlawing the seal hunt is the worst thing the Canadian Government could do with this issue. It will create far more problems than solutions. All the attention given to this exaggerated issue should be focused on more pressing concerns, such as the truly endangered species that do need our help and protection and the effects of climate change that are going to cause many more species to become endangered or possibly extinct. If seals were not as cute as they happen to be, this would not be an issue.
Learn more about this author, Adam Sprott.
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Yes
Every year the blood of baby seals as young as 12 days old stains the ice as Canada's commercial seal hunt begins, managed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). The brutality that follows can only be described as barbaric.
Though laws are in place to insure the manner in which the seals are killed is humane, every year many seals are killed outside the specified guidelines. As the hunting takes place in an unpredictable environment where the sealers have to contend with slippery ice, shooting form boats and seals in the water, many of the seals are struck and lost.' Having received a fatal blow or shot the seal either escapes by slipping into the sea where it will later die from its injuries or is left on the ice to suffer in pain. As the amount of ice decreases the amount of sealers shooting from boats increases and so does the number of struck and lost' seals.
Though the DFO specifies that once struck or shot the seals must be checked for a blinking reflex to make sure they are dead, many sealers have been observed to strike the seals at random and neglect to check for the reflex before dragging still alive bodies across the ice and proceeding to skin them while they are still conscious. As a highly competitive business many of the sealers are far more concerned with getting the job done quickly and killing as many seals as possible than with maintaining a humane hunt.
The Canadian government claims that the hunt is closely monitored, but in such conditions this is barely possible. It is clear that the humanity of the hunt is not a priority when few of those reported for inhumane killings by charities who watch the hunt closely are punished. The atrocities are allowed to continue. Many believe that given the extreme and difficult conditions in which the hunt takes place a humane hunt is not even a possibility.
If the cruelty involved isn't enough of a reason for the Canadian government to put an end to the hunt, then surely the threat it poses to the seal population is. Every year the government is presented with the number of seals that can be killed without damaging the population, and yet every year the government disregards the advised figures and places the total allowable catch (TAC) limit for the year at a higher level. What's more, when the TAC is inevitably exceeded, there are no penalties enforced.
The severity of the effect the hunt has on the seal population can not be fully understood until you realise the number of deaths that are not included in the seal hunt figures. Apart from the fact that seals that are struck and lost' are not included in the hunt figures, the seals also face the new threat of global warming. As the ice is melting the amount of time the seals have on the ice to birth and wean their young is decreasing. As a result, many of the seal pups abandoned by their mothers on the ice, once they have had their fill of her milk, run out of time before they are ready to take to the water and subsequently sink into the water too quickly and die. Even if the government were to stick to the advised figures that the seal population can stand to lose, these numbers do not take into account that the seal population is already seriously under threat from melting ice.
Finally the Canadian government should put an end to the hunt because it is not self-sustainable and the cons far out way the pros. For the sealers themselves the hunt makes up only a fraction of their yearly income. The majority of their income comes from fishing and so it is wrong to assume that their survival is dependent on the hunt. What's more the amount they can make for their efforts is dropping all the time as more and more countries place a ban on seal products. The market is small, and so are the prices paid. In fact the seal hunt is costing Canadian tax payers money as the government places more money into researching new markets for the product and offers the sealers tax breaks.
It was once claimed that the hunt was necessary because the seals were eating too much cod, yet cod only makes up a small part of the seals diet which also includes larger fish that pray on cod. The depleting cod population can only be attributed to over fishing by man, and the seals are not to blame.
When you combine the overwhelming evidence documented both on paper and on film that every year countless seals suffer at cruel hands with the knowledge that this is unnecessary and unsustainable, it is hard to understand why the Canadian government continues to support the seal hunt.
Learn more about this author, Sarah Radev.
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