Of Seals and Science
This past week we have been hearing a lot about seals, seal hunters and protesters. I thought I might throw my two cents worth into the fray and hope that I don’t add further confusion to the already crowded rhetorical arena.
In general, we, people that is, have three problems. Too many of us, too much consumption and no viable economic models that work under contracting or even static market conditions. Add to that mix, unnecessary brutality, photo-ops, egos and a bit of psychopathic blood lust and you set the stage for some pretty intractable confrontations.
Let’s begin with the brutality. It is beyond me why we cannot consume less brutally. From abattoir to dinner plate we treat the creatures upon which we prey and their environment with distain and inflict awful suffering in the name of economy, livelihood, recreation and sport. Personally, I can no longer conscience what I see as our great failing as a species. From agribusiness monoculture to the rape of the sea, we strip, mulch, process and consume beyond the pale. And from that perspective sealing is no different, no better, no worse than any other industry on the face of the world.
We treat animals, plants and ecology no worse that we treat ourselves for that matter. We slaughter, mistreat, torture, maim and exterminate our own numbers with the same brutal dispatch we inflict upon the seal pups. So, I guess, all things considered, the sealing industry is in truth no better and no worse than any other industry. And at the same time, in truth, the sealers do themselves no favours in the public arena, by continuing to behave as brutes, or appearing to be so.
When all things are considered, the use of animal products to cloth ourselves is far more ecologically responsible than wearing faux fur. You just have to get past the killing method. With synthetic products the killing is less tangible, but in fact worse in magnitude and suffering. One oil spill, from which all our synthetics come from, devastates millions of individual creatures. And what winds up as waste, and everything that we use eventually winds up as garbage, will kill and maim for hundreds and even thousands of years.
So putting that into perspective, the killing of a few baby seals, is no great crime in comparison. But why we portray ourselves, and continue to, in the face of changing times and climes, to behave so poorly and be seen by the rest of the world as brutes of the worst order, is a matter that has me shaking my head. What is it about us that needs to confront, obfuscate, distort and then let situations and circumstances be hijacked by the worst of us, so that radicals and wingnuts determine our futures and are the faces of the issues.
We consume too much, we are too many and we only think of growth.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:21 am
I don’t often agree with Richard Zurawski so I thought I would comment. We will always consume animals and animal products, there is nothing wrong with this. However, there is no need for cruelty and when the time comes to slaughter an animal, it should be dispatched humanely.