Re: Canada Seal Hunt

Mike from Ottawa wrote:


Sorry. Mr. Jens Paschke(Then with "Aldebaran Marine Research and Broadcast) filmed the slaughter in 1997 or 1998. He was onboard the Sea Shepherd. I saw his pictures.

Matthias


Are you sure about the accuracy of the dates?

Yes. I worked with Paschke from 1996 to 1999. Me as an underwater filmer, above the surface with him in some projects as lighting assistent.


Did you see the "slaughter?"

Paschke filmed them.


The question was "did you see the slaughter?" Personally. I didn't
ask if someone filmed it and told you it was filmed yesterday.

It is pretty dumb to ask me that, when I just told you that it was not me who was there, but a friend.


Were people killing white coats?

Yes.

If so,
did someone inform the authorities? Did the authorities respond or
ignore it? If they ignored your pleas, then you have a point.

The Coastguard was protecting the poachers. Their vessels where hindering the M/S Sea Shepherd III to appraoch the killing scene by more than one mile.
Paschke and a few others left the ship on their own risk and filmed the slayings.
This was in 1998. Teh film was schown at Vox "Tierzeit" in 1999.


Any proof?

A proof that TV was invented then?


Special note: In the 1998 campaign there was a multitude of efforts to help the fishermen. A German textile business developped successfuly process to use the hairs of the white coats in bed sheets, maintaining their full isolation properties. ( White coats lose their white hairs completely, when they have grown the grey hairs underneath. The white fur can be brushed from them nearly without loss, and they let it happen, and don't suffer from the process.

The Canadian Fishery ministery gave room for an experiment in this, but stopped it soon later for no apparent reason. It was said that the fishreman did not like it.


Cites? I've never heard of this one, and it sounds very odd.


He's rammed ships at sea,
risking human lives as well as property.

Yes. Is was beeing rammed as well, and mostly by much larger ships.


You can't reasonably return the favour and expect to be seen in a
favourable light.

Ramming the Sierra whale poachers was one of the best things ever happening at Sea since Trafalgar. And hats off to the S.E.A.L. team who blasted her finally to the ground.


Then I guess it works for both sides. Chaos and violence on the high
seas.

How dumb can you get? The Sierra people were criminals.
They needed to be punished.


I have no idea about this SEAL team you're talking about.

No problem. I do <eg>.



How will you feel when he finally does hurt someone? Or kills
someone? Is that justified? If you and Watson think it is, then the
others are just as justified in ramming and sinking Watson as
self-defence.

He does state and act so that nobody is intentionally hurt or killed.


I'm captain of my canoe. What's your point? Do you have any?

Why slould when you are making mine.

So lets agree that ecoterrorism has good sides, and downsides. I count Paul Watson on the good side.


Fine, but I count him as a nut and an eco-terrorist who is a danger to
others and to his causes.

But my support supports his cause, and your misdemeanor supports nothing.



<snip>

People have also hunted for millenia. What is the real difference
between killing animals while hunting or killing livestock that you've
raised on your farm?

One is no longer part of our economy. Of our ecology, hunting, yes, to a very limited degree.


Maybe in Deutschland, but in Canada a lot of people are hunters.
Speaking for yourself or do you need to get your facts straight?

Pls. sharpen your comprehension skills. The number of hunters is not related to their role in ecology. In general, hunters hunt for game, and not for ecologic management.
Feel free to prove otherwise.

Killing is killing, isn't it? If people want to
be true animal-helpers, they should be 100% vegetarians; the rest of
us are complicit in the killing and consumption of animals. If you
only wear a leather coat, you're still complicit.

No. You wearing a leather coat, in the first place.
But anyone eating meat, wearing fur, should be prepared to kill his game would he be forced to do it out of need.


That's really pretty silly. Do you really live by that?

It is not in any way silly to be able to kill and skin game, to be able to survive by the same means as our ancestors. It gives a better understanding and respect of life and death and saves you from whining like the PETA people.


To honour the anthropomorphic argument, one should well reflect of one would be able to kill one's dear sow, cow, dog, cat, to eat it some day.

Koreans eat dogs. I don't and wouldn't, but I respect their culture.

They also eat a monkey's brain from the living animal. I don't and wouldn't, and don't respect their culture for that sake.

Goody for you. Would it be OK if they first killed the monkey? Are
the Koreans OK or not? Why wouldn't you respect their culture? If
monkeys and dogs are not good, are cats? What about parakeets?
Lizards? Insects? Where do you draw the line? How cute it is?

Quite simple. Use your judgement.
Imagine your kids would meet new kids on the black. A pair of twins, for example.
You have seen the one kid killing cockroaches, helping a beetle out of a spiders web; the other eating a monkeys brain from the living animal tied down under the table, tis head protruding through a whole in the table.

Who you'd like your kids to asociate with?


You'd be disturbing the seal pups and that's OK to you?

How do you know? Have you been one? Have you ever been in the water with seals?


Got any cites
for this "combing" stuff? I've never heard of that one before,
half-baked as it smells.

You seem indeed quite remote from the concerning facts.


The Secretary of course used the old argument that they eat the cod... When he was shown evidence( from scientific seal stomach contents analyses, showing that cod is a 5% contents only in seals, the rest being fish of no interest for fishery)


We don't have Secretaries.

Call them Minister, if you need to.


I really don't know or care too much about
how much cod they eat. There just isn't many cod left.

So all your arguments about population management are fake. Thanks for stating that.


Well, I know of one Newfoundlander who recently returned home and
still works with us. He's a very long-distance telecommuter, but many
in a conference call have no idea he's so far away. I think that's
part of the answer for Newfoundland, since telecommunications gives us
the opportunity to work anywhere.

This obviously affords the ability to talk sensibly and use a phone. How is education among the fishermen, in general?


Can you talk sensibly and use a phone? Just curious, since some
Newfoundlanders would like to know.

I can exchange courtesies, but I don't think I could compete..


The wrong context. The reasons for the seal poaching are fake, and submit the poachers to international content.
In reality, they are the dummies for the government.


You'd better also go talk to the Greenlanders/Danes, Norse and
Russians. Tell them what to do in their waters, and tell them it's
"poaching." We'll come over and harangue you about the lack of wolves
in your almost non-existent forests.

Mostly we tell them what not to do in international waters, where for instance whaling regulations by the IWC exists, and are constantly broken by Iceland, Norway, Thailand, Korea.

But you can't talk alll the time to all people.
Some like to concentrate on the Canadians, and for good reason.

Check the stats. Given the numbers of hobby fishermen on this
continent, game species are often re-stocked in lakes. That's a lot
of pressure. Some practise catch-and-release and many don't. Are you
"for" animals or not? Why do you think you can have it both ways? Are
fish too ugly for you?

Hobby fishing for the catch and releas thing is borderline. There are laws against doing unnessecary harm to animals with a vertebra here, which are not executed well enough. Of course fishermen tell you fish don't suffer when hooked. Permanent proff is the pike, which will bite agein subito once it is released.

When dumbness is the proof of not suffering...
You have not suffered very much lately, did you ?


Seals are a resource only to those Inuit and northern people to whom tehy constitute a base for survival.
There is a very easy and cost effecitve way of "managing seal resources". Don't kill the whales. Don't use low frequency long range sonar. Don't pollute the environmnent.


The Inuit also go whaling. Wanna stop that, too? Save the whales.

Oh how I love differentiate thinking.


But we could prevent the misuse of man made fire to open up areas for housing projects, by forbidding those projects on burnt ground.

Fine, then run along and control human populations. We're far too
numerous anyways.

A very good idea... Still, have you spent a thought about the fact, that on that arson-burnt ground, there will be nobody building low income flats?


In the same way, seal populations in the Gulf of St Lawrence have very
few natural predators

They have. Orcas, and Sharks.


In the Gulf of St Lawrence? Get real. Too far north for either. You
might get the odd lost shark and that's about it.

There are Whites, Blue Shark, Pilgrim Sharks in the Biscaya, around Cornwall,Vancouver, Ireland, Mako ( Herring Shark) in the North Sea, that's the same parallel as St. Lawrence. There are Orca at the Lofote Islands in Norway, thats far North.

and I understand that their populations have
rebounded and tripled since the 1970s. We have to wisely manage the
population of all populations, unless you want to suddenly see them
starve and die en masse.

We don't have to manage anything like that. Because seals do no harm. Because we should refrain from managed something we don't understand. Because we should refrain from managing something for the wrong reasons.


So don't manage deer? Buy you said they cause problems. Make up your
mind if you can.

Deer do economical harm to state forest plantations.
The only seal doing harm to fishery is one living near my place. He has eaten most of the fish out of ones fishermans net. I love him for that. This fisherman is known for fishing with illegal nets, and one day I'll nail him for that.


If we've done the wrong thing with seals,

I've yet to hear about it. Bad press is not science.

Just get the cotton out.


Or stuff the cotton in, put on the blinders and wrap yourself in
Captain Watson's pirate flag.

It is a breach of law to show the Jolly Joker at sea. Unless you are a canoe.

Matthias

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