lifeonqueen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lifeonqueen) wrote2007-04-14 10:57 am
lifeonqueen) wrote2007-04-14 10:57 am
Entry tags:
Hold My Coat and Hand Me My Hakapik or Saturday Morning with Seawage and Seal Hunting
There is sewage coming up between the toilet and the floor in my bathroom.
The good news - I rent and the landlady is sending someone to fix. The bad news - I can't run water or use the toilet in my apartment. This could become a critical problem in the next half hour or so as this morning's coffee (purchased across the street when I took the trash out as I was entirely "OH. GOD. COFFEE. NOW.") and chocolate croissant works it's way through my system.
Meanwhile, hanging out in the apartment, reading Macleans, which Ken Whyte and co. have manged to turn into the Weekly Tubby Lite (I've said it once, I'll say it again, Mark Steyn is a self-satisfied gasbag and Rebecca Eckler should be put out of the reading public's misery). I bought it for the coverage of the rededication of the Vimy Memorial and I'm beginning to regret my decision. However, did find an interesting article about the German hunting industry (approximately one million deer; half a million wild boar per annum) and the recent statements by Germany's Agriculture Minister calling for a ban on Canadian seal products.
The short version: Germans like hunting - a lot. And yet they, along with the British (currently ignoring the illegal fox hunting going on all over the UK), the Spanish (bullfighting) and the Italians (the Italian fashion industry is a major consumer of commercial furs) are having their annual bleat about the seal hunt. To which I say, as I do every year, Fuck. Off.
Each spring, animal rights activists, particularly the International Federation for Animal Welfare, get practically orgasmic about the seal hunt for one very good reason, which has nothing to do with saving seal pups - those ads featuring the adorable fuzzy seals getting their brains bashed in generate the majority of donations to their groups each year - as much as 80 to 90 per cent of total funding for some groups. That's major bank and explains why groups like the IFAW continue to spread misinformation about the hunt - it makes them money. Fact is, Canada estimates that the North Atlantic Harp Seal herd is about five million strong, while the quota for this year's hunt is 270,000. And while the seal hunt does not represent a huge chunk of the North Atlantic fishery (estimates of the annual value fluctuates between $16 to $25 million per year IIRC), for the hunters involved, the hunt represents the single largest source of income for their entire year.
In Canadian parlance, Newfoundland and Labrador is a "have-not province", increasingly dependent on equalization payments from the Canadian federal government to maintain it's public services and standard of living (in Canada, the federal government transfers tax revenues from the more prosperous provinces - the Haves - the less prosperous - the Have Nots - to ensure that all provinces and territories within the federation can offer the same or similar levels of healthcare, education and public services to their citizens). Commercial overfishing has virtually exterminated the fish stocks that have been the primary source of food and income for the outports of Newfoundland and Labrador since the 16th century and attempts to replace fishing as the province's primary industry have consistently proved unsuccessful. As a result, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador (including the Innu and the Inuit who have been hunting seals for 12,000 years and like it, thankyouverymuch) would be disproportionately affected by the closure of the hunt.
Furthermore, at it's current levels, Canada's seal hunt is manifestly a sustainable hunt. As demonstrated by the poor ice conditions that delayed the opening of the hunt until this week, currently, the greatest threat to the long-term survival of the Harp Seal is not the hunt but Canadians, Americans, Chinese and Indians driving around in their great bloody suburban assault vehicles and doublecab pick-ups, getting 20 miles to the gallon (or 11 kilometres per litre). If the current trend towards rising temperatures across the Artic continues, the Harp Seal faces a serious and potentially insurmountable threat to its survival. In which case, the monetization of the species through the seal hunt may actually work in the seals' favour, if conservationists and hunters ever agree to put their heads together to work to preserve the Harp Seal and other species for future generations.
In the meantime, however, I expect that the annual sturm und drangover the hunt will continue over the next few weeks - and not just within the German Legislature - until the hunter and the activists return to their home ports, having filled their respective quotas. And yet, having read within the last two weeks that both the Orangutan and the Koala face extinction within the decade due to loss of habitat, I have to wonder what the hell IFAW, the German legislature and the EU are playing at - all three species are invaluable but of the three, the threat to the Harp Seal is by far the least pressing. And yet, where all the calls to the Indonesian government to protect the Orangutan's natural habitat from deforestation for palm oil plantations? Who's calling Canberra to tell them to put some bloody greenbelt legislation in place and stop turning the Koala's habitat into subdivisions? Why aren't people being urged to call bullshit on the American and Canadian governments for not restricting environmentally-destructive products like plantation-farmed palm and soybean oil from biodiesel?
Nowhere.
But everyone wants to save the cute animals.
The hypocrisy of animal rights groups and activists campaigning against the seal hunt stinks to high heaven. Paul McCartney's self-aggrandizing attention-seeking photo op from last year (where kind-hearted Sir Paul had his pilot hold the seal's mother off with a club out of the frame of the picture so he could have his picture taken with a white-coat seal pup - which are, in fact, protected by law) is only the most visible example. Saying that it's not nice to club baby seals to death is easy. Getting someone to give up their pick-up truck is hard. But guess which one will actually help protect species at risk?
eta 1: The good - there is a job being advertised with WWF Canada. The bad - I know jack and shit about natural waterways conservation (well, besides they should be conserved and all damns not necessary for hydro-electric generation and flood control should be torn down - no, summer pleasure boating is NOT a good enough reason to fuck up the natural health of a river, asshole). :(
eta 2: Two interesting job postings with MOE this weekend. Not sure that I want to move to Thunder Bay but $1,400/week would go a lot further up there than it does here, that's for sure.
The good news - I rent and the landlady is sending someone to fix. The bad news - I can't run water or use the toilet in my apartment. This could become a critical problem in the next half hour or so as this morning's coffee (purchased across the street when I took the trash out as I was entirely "OH. GOD. COFFEE. NOW.") and chocolate croissant works it's way through my system.
Meanwhile, hanging out in the apartment, reading Macleans, which Ken Whyte and co. have manged to turn into the Weekly Tubby Lite (I've said it once, I'll say it again, Mark Steyn is a self-satisfied gasbag and Rebecca Eckler should be put out of the reading public's misery). I bought it for the coverage of the rededication of the Vimy Memorial and I'm beginning to regret my decision. However, did find an interesting article about the German hunting industry (approximately one million deer; half a million wild boar per annum) and the recent statements by Germany's Agriculture Minister calling for a ban on Canadian seal products.
The short version: Germans like hunting - a lot. And yet they, along with the British (currently ignoring the illegal fox hunting going on all over the UK), the Spanish (bullfighting) and the Italians (the Italian fashion industry is a major consumer of commercial furs) are having their annual bleat about the seal hunt. To which I say, as I do every year, Fuck. Off.
Each spring, animal rights activists, particularly the International Federation for Animal Welfare, get practically orgasmic about the seal hunt for one very good reason, which has nothing to do with saving seal pups - those ads featuring the adorable fuzzy seals getting their brains bashed in generate the majority of donations to their groups each year - as much as 80 to 90 per cent of total funding for some groups. That's major bank and explains why groups like the IFAW continue to spread misinformation about the hunt - it makes them money. Fact is, Canada estimates that the North Atlantic Harp Seal herd is about five million strong, while the quota for this year's hunt is 270,000. And while the seal hunt does not represent a huge chunk of the North Atlantic fishery (estimates of the annual value fluctuates between $16 to $25 million per year IIRC), for the hunters involved, the hunt represents the single largest source of income for their entire year.
In Canadian parlance, Newfoundland and Labrador is a "have-not province", increasingly dependent on equalization payments from the Canadian federal government to maintain it's public services and standard of living (in Canada, the federal government transfers tax revenues from the more prosperous provinces - the Haves - the less prosperous - the Have Nots - to ensure that all provinces and territories within the federation can offer the same or similar levels of healthcare, education and public services to their citizens). Commercial overfishing has virtually exterminated the fish stocks that have been the primary source of food and income for the outports of Newfoundland and Labrador since the 16th century and attempts to replace fishing as the province's primary industry have consistently proved unsuccessful. As a result, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador (including the Innu and the Inuit who have been hunting seals for 12,000 years and like it, thankyouverymuch) would be disproportionately affected by the closure of the hunt.
Furthermore, at it's current levels, Canada's seal hunt is manifestly a sustainable hunt. As demonstrated by the poor ice conditions that delayed the opening of the hunt until this week, currently, the greatest threat to the long-term survival of the Harp Seal is not the hunt but Canadians, Americans, Chinese and Indians driving around in their great bloody suburban assault vehicles and doublecab pick-ups, getting 20 miles to the gallon (or 11 kilometres per litre). If the current trend towards rising temperatures across the Artic continues, the Harp Seal faces a serious and potentially insurmountable threat to its survival. In which case, the monetization of the species through the seal hunt may actually work in the seals' favour, if conservationists and hunters ever agree to put their heads together to work to preserve the Harp Seal and other species for future generations.
In the meantime, however, I expect that the annual sturm und drangover the hunt will continue over the next few weeks - and not just within the German Legislature - until the hunter and the activists return to their home ports, having filled their respective quotas. And yet, having read within the last two weeks that both the Orangutan and the Koala face extinction within the decade due to loss of habitat, I have to wonder what the hell IFAW, the German legislature and the EU are playing at - all three species are invaluable but of the three, the threat to the Harp Seal is by far the least pressing. And yet, where all the calls to the Indonesian government to protect the Orangutan's natural habitat from deforestation for palm oil plantations? Who's calling Canberra to tell them to put some bloody greenbelt legislation in place and stop turning the Koala's habitat into subdivisions? Why aren't people being urged to call bullshit on the American and Canadian governments for not restricting environmentally-destructive products like plantation-farmed palm and soybean oil from biodiesel?
Nowhere.
But everyone wants to save the cute animals.
The hypocrisy of animal rights groups and activists campaigning against the seal hunt stinks to high heaven. Paul McCartney's self-aggrandizing attention-seeking photo op from last year (where kind-hearted Sir Paul had his pilot hold the seal's mother off with a club out of the frame of the picture so he could have his picture taken with a white-coat seal pup - which are, in fact, protected by law) is only the most visible example. Saying that it's not nice to club baby seals to death is easy. Getting someone to give up their pick-up truck is hard. But guess which one will actually help protect species at risk?
eta 1: The good - there is a job being advertised with WWF Canada. The bad - I know jack and shit about natural waterways conservation (well, besides they should be conserved and all damns not necessary for hydro-electric generation and flood control should be torn down - no, summer pleasure boating is NOT a good enough reason to fuck up the natural health of a river, asshole). :(
eta 2: Two interesting job postings with MOE this weekend. Not sure that I want to move to Thunder Bay but $1,400/week would go a lot further up there than it does here, that's for sure.