h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Not wanting to turn the 'what news' thread into an endless discussion about seal clubbing, I'll post what facts I know here. It's amazing how naive and ignorant people still are about this widely spread phenomen.

1. 'They kill seals humanely and instantly, with one smart hit across the head.' Not even an experiened hunter gets a perfect hit each and every time, but the majority of clubbers aren't even hunters. They have to club the seal cubs several times over before they die. Here's a youtube showing it (warning! brutal scenes!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxqaptR4nRg&feature=related

2. 'They ('The Thule are an arctic people') kill the seals (using a method repeatedly investigated by veterinarians and determined to be humane) to make a living. Somebody is buying the seal products (not only fur). Most sealers bring meat home to their families from the hunt.'

This might be true for a minority of seal clubbers, but the majority of them don't give a toss for any part of the seal cubs except the fur (which is why they are clubbed so that the fur isn't damaged). The cubs are often skinned on the ice and the carcass heaved into the sea. Sometimes they're even skinned while alive, something that the Norvwegian Odd Lindberg documented by filming it while he was working as a volunteer sealing inspector. This film made him so hated in Norway that he moved to Sweden, among other things because of receiving several death threats.

More about Odd Lindberg here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_F._Lindberg

Around 900,000 seals are killed each year. In Canada, Namibia, Norway (together 60%) and Russia for the furs and in Sweden, Finland and Russia to prevent them from eating all the fish. This according to a document at the European Parliament. Can't be bothered to go look for the document in English (it's from May 2009 so should be pretty up-to-date info), but here it is in Swedish:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?language=SV&type=IM-PRESS&reference=20090504STO54870

'Your empathy for little furry critters being bashed to death is commendable but perhaps misplaced if a resulting ban on the hunt impacts the lives and livelihoods of one of the last native (aboriginal) peoples in the world.'

So we should just look the other way and allow this brutal way of hunting to allow a few people to stick to their old ways instead of adapting to modern society like the rest of us?

Yes, a lot of the time I *am* more protective of animal rights than human rights. I think the with be a better place without the human race. I am hoping that Mother Nature will find the ultimate method for wiping out the majority of humans before they completely ruin this globe.

ahhh! I think we ought to be allowed to clubb the seal clubbers, several smart blows ought to do it, then when they wake up do it some more.................. I hate the W*&KERS............



RJR ( from the garden shed and right miffed)