[BRIEF NOTE] On saving the seals
Oct. 22nd, 2009 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThis article came up on my RSS feed.
I actually agree with this campaign. It's a fairly incontrovertible fact, I think, that the seals of Atlantic Canada are not responsible for the collapse of the fisheries. Rather, it's the shameless thoughtlessness of fishers, including--yes, really--a majority of Atlantic Canadians who didn't think about the codfish save as a source of income. Why haven't the cod recovered? Decades of industrial fishing, including that undertaken by Atlantic Canadians--remember the fisheries plant in every outport period in the 1980s-- have wrecked the marien ecology. Killing seals under this erroneous pretense, frankly, seems to be a combination of blind regionalism and displacement. The Atlantic Canadian seal hunt amounts to killing animals because you're unhappy. Must this be defended?
As for the official Canadian outrage at the European Union ban, I really don't see how a trading bloc saying that it doesn't want to import a product deemed to have been produced immorally can be condemned, the ad hominems I've heard confirming the point.
So, yes. I wish PETA the best of luck. May it save us Canadians from our short-sighted selves.
Pamela Anderson will help launch a new ad campaign against the Canadian seal hunt Friday morning at the Ontario legislature in Toronto.
The Canadian actress and activist is one of several celebrities who will be part of the PETA campaign calling for an end to the annual seal hunt.
They will be wearing PETA's "Save the Seals" T-shirt, which was previewed this summer by Sarah McLachlan at a Canada Day concert.
Among the other Canadians featured in the ad campaign are Jayde Nicole (of the teen TV show The Hills) and Battlestar Galactica stars Tricia Helfer and Grace Park.
Others include rocker Kelly Osborne (who appears on the current season of Dancing With the Stars) and blogger Perez Hilton.
PETA says the ads will appear in entertainment magazines and on blogs and will be tweeted in many languages starting this fall, to keep pressure on the government year-round instead of just during the spring when protests are expected.
I actually agree with this campaign. It's a fairly incontrovertible fact, I think, that the seals of Atlantic Canada are not responsible for the collapse of the fisheries. Rather, it's the shameless thoughtlessness of fishers, including--yes, really--a majority of Atlantic Canadians who didn't think about the codfish save as a source of income. Why haven't the cod recovered? Decades of industrial fishing, including that undertaken by Atlantic Canadians--remember the fisheries plant in every outport period in the 1980s-- have wrecked the marien ecology. Killing seals under this erroneous pretense, frankly, seems to be a combination of blind regionalism and displacement. The Atlantic Canadian seal hunt amounts to killing animals because you're unhappy. Must this be defended?
As for the official Canadian outrage at the European Union ban, I really don't see how a trading bloc saying that it doesn't want to import a product deemed to have been produced immorally can be condemned, the ad hominems I've heard confirming the point.
So, yes. I wish PETA the best of luck. May it save us Canadians from our short-sighted selves.
