baby seals are cute, but its not random people killing seals its natives who depend on the seals for food and their economy. i think anyone but natives hsould be banned from hunting seals...actually i think the act of hunting is barbaric to begin with..however this has more to do with animal rights than the environment
The seal hunt should be banned--all it is is a slaughter for the sake of fur. The seal hunt is conducted primarily by non-natives. Natives hunt seals primarily for sustinance, and selling the furs is secondary; it simply provides them with some cash to survive in a modern world that they've been forced to adapt to.
WTF??? Ban it because ya know, the natives just need it to survive. Basically what your saying is fuck the natives. I say FUCK YOU
First of all I think "animal rights" belongs to a larger set: Environment. Secondly, subsistance hunting may be okay for the natives but the exploitative fur trading "white man" should be banned from hunting them. I bet the natives have a more reliable common sense and dont hunt the pregnant seals or the new born offsprings.
I think that maybe I wasn't as clear as I could have been, but I don't think that I stated anything remotely like "Ban it because... the natives need it to survive." No, not at all. I first became aware of this issue and have an interest in it ever since I took a course on this in university; I better understood the nature of the seal hunt, and how natives were drawn into it, whether it was the Indians for beaver, etc. or the Inuit for seal. They always had of course hunted these animals in order to survive, and I believe that this is very much their right now, too. But the seal hunt needs to be banned because it is exploitive, not sustainable. And as I stated, the seal hunt is conducted primarily by non-natives.
Natives have a much better understanding of animals, and if you watch docs like Cree Hunters of Misstassini, you get a good understanding of how Native trappers were (and I assume still are) capable of not over-exploiting an animal by keeping detailed mental records of past hunting seasons. It's quite remarkable. But at the same time I think that this was under ideal conditions. Traditionally, European greed was the determining factor in how much was hunted, and the Natives were in a position where they kind had to comply, which meant that they had to participate in the exploitation of such animals as the beaver. As these resources became exploited, Europeans had to go further inland, and this caused further exploitation and much tension among Natives who had become dependent upon the Fur Trade. Unfortunately, many "animal rights" activists are really bent out of shape and want to protect every living thing from any and all suffering, which is just contrary to Nature. They make outrageous assertions that Inuit, for example, should be allowed to hunt, even though most are still largely dependent upon "country food".
