Many thanks to Whitehorse letter-writer Kevin Sinclair for challenging the new "humane" seal hunt guidelines.

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Beaten to death for a coat or boots

Whitehorse Star on March 17, 2008
http://www.whitehorsestar.com/

Beware the Ides of March.

I was happy to hear that the European Union is perhaps just two weeks away from a total ban of seal fur.

The annual slaughter of these babies in front of their mothers is testimony enough.

These bogus press releases are an affront to damage control, plum full of meaningless rhetoric and also sickening. They can now only crush the skull of a baby seal when their coat turns grey.

They are born with a white coat and turn grey at around three weeks. This does not change this brutal act.

An animal still suckling and unable to swim or move is beaten to death for a coat or pair of boots. A baby!

It lends an all-new meaning to the phrase “born to die.” Even hunters would have to consider this insane.

And then the new three-point plan recently offered as a press release. First, hit the baby seal on the head with the club and then check to see if the skull is crushed.

Look at its eyes, and then, lastly, bleed the animal out. This is your defence? This butchering is a form of employment in this century?

Oh, that’s right; that three-week-old seal is a menace to society, a resource cockroach responsible for the extinction of the cod industry and, in addition Paris Hilton, requires a rug. Truly enlightened group of individuals.

Mr. Lapierre (head of the sealers’ association) claims the new three-step program is “very good.”

He further contends, “As for the question of suffering, it really ensures the animal is dead and people wont be able to question that anymore.”

This it is deemed by the decision-makers sitting in their ivory towers to be humane and also by veterinarians.

Mr. Lapierre: it’s the act itself and what it entails, not the methods used to complete it that is horrifying in this day and age. The methods used only increase the barbarity.

Thousands of years ago, the Mayans managed to calculate the length of the lunar moon as 329.53020 days, only 34 seconds out.

The Mayan calendar predicts that the Earth will end as we know it on Dec. 21, 2012.

Given that they were pretty close to the mark with the lunar cycle, it’s likely they’ve got the end of the world right as well. Perhaps that’s why we as a species proceed with blinders on.

There is no tomorrow. It’s a now generation. I’m quite sure the rest of life on this planet patiently waits for this day.

No doubt, there will be one hell of a party afterwards, and none of us will be going.

Kevin Sinclair
Whitehorse