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| Last updated at 11:28 AM on 20/03/08 |
Related video-on-demand  :
Fisheries Minister calls PETA2 video a "new low"  
The Western Star
The provincial government is alarmed by a new anti-sealing video which is being distributed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) 2, in Germany. The Honourable Tom Rideout, Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, expressed his disappointment and concern that this group would draw such a vile comparison to the Canadian sealing industry, which includes one of the most well-managed harvests anywhere in the world.
The video compares the harvesting of seals to the violent physical abuse of a human.
“We are now witnessing a new low on the part of anti-sealing organizations,” said Minister Rideout via a press release. “We in Newfoundland and Labrador have become accustomed to the misinformation and inaccurate depictions of the seal harvest that are presented around this time every year. However, this particular attack is the most vile that I have ever seen myself in my almost 30 years in public life. It is completely indecent for this group of people, who have likely never even visited our province, to present such a disturbing depiction of sealers.”
“It is ironic that this group, which is making such an unethical attack, has the word ethical in its name,” said the minister. “Their ethics are certainly nowhere to be seen in this approach to addressing their concerns with the Canadian sealing industry. It is also ironic that this attack is coming from Germany where there is a harvest of wild animals including the hunt of 1.2 million deer and over 500,000 wild boars per year.”
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20/03/08
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Aoife Murphy from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia writes: The truth hurts, doesn't it? Yup, that's pretty well what happens out there on the ice. Only difference is - the seal pups don't have the chance of running away that the guy in the video had.
Tom Rideout is mistaken - it is not an attack on Canadians; it is an attack on sealers who - yes - hunt down sentient beatings, bludgeon them to death viciously and rip their coats off.
You'd know all about propaganda, Tom Rideout - you were spewing enough of it in St. John's last weekend...
Power to PETA, I say. Rock on with that video!
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| Posted 20/03/2008 at 8:24 PM | Alert an Editor | Link to comment |
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leo blanchard from Corner Brook, nl writes: Shame on you PETA. This video is going to the extreme and extremely vile. Not much TRUTH apparent. This video is going beyond all boundaries....Aoife you need an education in the seal hunt and other animal ways of killing - like Germany's deer hunt - very humane????ROCK on Rideout...Shame on A Murphy. I thought PETA would be beyond such drastic measures, I guess know we know how drastic they neede to be.....Money talks....when it is all boied down it is all aout survial of the extreme organizatons and Money....
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| Posted 20/03/2008 at 9:08 PM | Alert an Editor | Link to comment |
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Will Cole from Petries, NL writes: This seal hunt foolishness has such a carnival atmosphere associated with it now it's become bloody ridiculous.
I'd say shut it all down once and for all and put'em all out of business. The whole lot of'em... the animal rights fraud artists, the Nfld nationalists, the righteously indignant politicians with their shrill exhortations aimed at currying favour with the rabble and the few remaining sealers too.
Most of these guys are close to retirement age anyway, and the ones who would've replaced them left for Alberta long ago. Do these stragglers a favour for gawdssakes and buy them out or give them an early retirement package or something, but get them the hell out of it.
Shut down the whole GD works once and for all and then maybe we can finally have some peace and quiet.
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| Posted 20/03/2008 at 10:30 PM | Alert an Editor | Link to comment |
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lonny from ON writes: Let's not forget that Germany is the nation that skinned Jews to make lamp shades. Now the modern day Nazis are waging a new campaign of hate against these peaceful, law-abiding people of Canada.
There are more animals killed for fur on European fur farms every week than the entire annual catch quota for the Canadian seal hunt. Check the website of the European Fur Breeders Association.
http://www.efbanet.com/economics.htm
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| Posted 21/03/2008 at 3:14 AM | Alert an Editor | Link to comment |
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Neran K from Berlin writes: @ leo blanchard from Corner Brook - You must be such an inhumane person.
Seal hunting is the most CRUELEST slaughters in the face of the planet. Have you seen the white ice covered with red blood of innocent seal pups? I won't even think of doing such things to my greatest enemies. . . !
Slaughtering seals will no way gonna benifit anyone. The Fisheries Dept of Newfoundland just want to make good money of those killings, and they are least bothered how the seals going to suffer. I appreciate www.PETA2.de for bring this brutality to the public.
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| Posted 21/03/2008 at 3:36 AM | Alert an Editor | Link to comment |
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Bridget Curran from Halifax, NS writes: leo blanchard from Corner Brook, you say there is not much truth apparent in that video and say that Aoife needs an education in the seal hunt.
Well, I've been there and witnessed it with my own eyes. I observed the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence hunt last year and was present on Hay Island, Cape Breton, for the slaughter of grey seal pups. And I can attest to the fact that the content of that video is fairly representative of what happens on the ice and islands on the east coast of Canada each year.
Men armed with crude bats or hakapiks descend on their victims, bludgeon them and rip the skin off their bodies.
leo blanchard, perhaps you would like to point out to us how the video is not factually correct? Perhaps because the seal pups do not drive cars? Perhaps because it does not show the sealers physically assaulting lawful observers to the acts of violence? Perhaps because it does not show DFO running back and forth getting coffee for the boys , just as DFO does for the seal killers in Nova Scotia?
Having seen it with my own eyes, I maintain that the video is fairly accurate in its portrayal of the wanton violence that is inherent in the seal hunt. Perhaps it is you who needs an education on the realities of the seal hunt...
Tom Rideout says that he is disappointed with the video, as it draws a comparison between the violent physical abuse of a human and the seal hunt. Obviously Mr. Rideout considers the violent physical abuse of an animal to be less of a concern than the violent physical abuse of a human. That mindset, together with the fact that the Canadian government does not even recognize seals as animals but rather as fish – a “natural resource to be harvested” - speaks volumes of their lack of respect for animal welfare and belies their bogus claims that the seal hunt is humane.
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| Posted 21/03/2008 at 8:49 AM | Alert an Editor | Link to comment |
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Bridget Curran from Halifax, NS writes: Oh yes, I think I know what prompted your claim that the video is not factually correct - because numerous sealers do not bludgeon a lone pup. Well, that's right - each sealer goes off and bludgeons and skins as many as he can find on his own, sometimes one bludgeoning and another hooking, dragging and skinning, even if the seal is still showing signs of consciousness. The video doesn't actually show that bit - the victim still moving, trying to push away the knife that is slicing him open while his coat is being ripped from his body...
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| Posted 21/03/2008 at 9:06 AM | Alert an Editor | Link to comment |
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Glenn from Charlie's Head, Eh!, NL writes: Wow, the crazies are out today.
There are 3 million seals off the Magdelaine islands, another 7 million off the northeast coast of NL. That's 10 million seals eating Kentucky fried chicken and happy meals, everyone knows they don't eat the endangerd atlantic salmon and near extinct Northern cod. I can't wait for the seal population to go over 15 million seals and than we'll see the the population implode on itself and disease and famine will rule the day. Nature abhors a vacumn. I can't wait for the seal to become extinct so we don't have to put up with this name calling every spring. The photo op of momma seal eating baby seal should draw in the big bucks, eh?
Yes, stop killing the seals so they can starve to death and die a painful death of disease and sickness. Only then will the seal-nazis be happy. Than, on to the oilsands, the next big money maker for these arts degreee bearing pyscophants.
This crap ain't worth the 20 million it brings to the Atlantic Canada economy and not the tens of millions in fundraising for Peta, Greenpeace and the WWF.
The best we can hope for is that the seal hunt ends and the population craters under its own weight.
I wonder would PETA than hire people to cull the herd to end their suffering humanely?
Either end the seal hunt or give every NL'er a permit to kill as many of these vermin of the sea as possible.
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| Posted 21/03/2008 at 2:03 PM | Alert an Editor | Link to comment |
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