I am a member of the American Human Society organization and I was e-mail this.

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I think this is horrible and should stop. Please take a look at it, I myself was really moved by the video that was shown. These animals are defenseless and can't protect themselves.

What do you guys think about this?


Anyone here from Canada that has heard about this or shares an opinion about it?

That's pretty cruel. I guess I'm not from Canada, so don't really have anything in the way of specialised knowledge, but this sort of thing happens everywhere to different animals.

At the moment, the issue in Australia is the Japanese whalers and the scuffles they're having with Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherds.

Anyhow, not meaning to pry, insult or offend, but are you a vegetarian? If so/not, what's your stance towards animal cruelty of any sort? To insects? Fish?

First I would like to say thank you for responding to me post.

Second I would like to answer your question in the moest honest way possible. Answering it in this way may prove me a hypocrite or having a double standard but I feel that I have nothing to hide.

I personally am not a vegetarian. I do love meat and like eating it. I believe that animal cruelty is wrong though. It is true that livestock, of which I eat from, go through what could be considered inhumane treatment. Many of this issues may be looked on a case by case basis in which the logical aspect may be anaylyzed as follows: if the cruelty of the animal yields something then is it that bad? if it yields nothing (like that of the seals) is it worse?

All in all animal cruelty inflicts pain that is not necessary. I cannot, at this moment, formulate anything better than what I have said. I feel like I should be a vegetarian but don't see myself being one because of the diet I choose.

In reference to fish and sea animals it is very interesting. One would not cosider fishing or eating crustacions as in humane. I guess this is because most humans like to think of them as un-human. With that said people will wonder around not worrying about this hard shelled living organisms because to them they don't outcry! or scream! or yet...have the same structure that we do (they are not considered mammals). This is quite interesting and sometimes may even be hypocritical because they are still living things.

Ive seen 1 time on internet how they killed a little seal!! It cant be a normal human. I just want to kill that person!!

Er, if you kill that person, does that make you better or worse than the one who killed the seal?

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BMWFreak, thanks for your honest answer! I also am not a vegetarian. I enjoy eating meat and consider it an important part of my diet, though not eating it to excess in any case. I know that some of the animals that I eat more than likely have lived in conditions that, were I to see them, I would probably take pity on them. Yet, I believe that despite what we've read about in this thread and the other one, humans in general are more 'worthy' than animals, and if not that, then we have as much a right to eat animals as animals have a right to eat each other.

I like your idea of 'unnecessary cruelty'. I suppose there's little to be gained by clubbing of baby seals, whereas at least the purpose of the livestock's (poor?) living conditions is to make it easier to raise and keep them. Would it be better if they gave the seals fatal injections, though? I guess there is always the human tendency to anthropomorphise - to give human traits to nonhuman things - and that makes cute and cuddly baby seals something that we can relate to, whereupon their slaughter somehow provokes a raw, almost unavoidable feeling of .. violation.

To this end, maybe anthropomorphisation could be considered something that makes us inconsistent - to grieve over baby seals, yet to think nothing of ordering the baked fish for dinner. I guess it's a necessary thing, though - IMO it's a similar sort of thing that gives us our humanity, the ability to feel for others, including other people. What monsters we would all be, if we couldn't relate to the feelings of others.

Anyhow, perhaps weirdly, and in this thread since it's perhaps a bit calmer here, I can't condemn the animal torturers entirely - I've never done it, and it vaguely disgusts me, but I've put cockroaches in the bathtub, used a flaming aerosol spray (hold a lighter in front of aerosol and spray; DON'T TRY THIS YOURSELF, IT'S DANGEROUS) to half-kill it, then arranged matches around it and lit them all up. Ok, the sexual stimulation part is a bit weird, but as for the acts themselves, who am I to condemn what is done, if all it is is doing it to a different animal?

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After all that, to be honest, all I can feel for both the tortured animals and the seals is pity, and that it's a shame that magnificent creatures are destroyed so cruelly and needlessly. But I can't get worked up over it, since I couldn't live with the inconsistencies in my life.

Sorry for hijacking your thread!

I am not from Canada but have also been a member of a bunch of organizations that are dedicated to protecting animals and the planet. Once you join one you will start getting invitations from a lot of organizations and I guess one can join as long as you can afford to pay.
I am also a vegeterian and find the kind of actions referred to above really depressing. Our whole culture is just so geared for making a quick buck and that results in a whole host of situations, whether it be the gallbladders of the bears, or the meatprocessing operations of the fast food organizations, or abusing wildlife, dogs, cats, Rhinos, Elephants for their tusks, you name it, all over the world, not just the seals in Canada. I think Peta, to which I also belong, once used the word holocaust for some situation and got criticized for going too far. When one really starts finding out what's going on it's hard to think that any verbal expression would be going too far.
But at the same time, no matter how helpless one feels about these things, I guess every little bit helps, whatever it is one can do for the animals. I am glad Paul McCartney and other people of public recognition are vocal about these things. Little guys like me, all I can do is not eating animal products, give a few bucks to these organizations that help, and feed all the neighbourhood straycats in addition to having adopted 3 dogs and 3 cats who all live inside the house and I think that's pretty much my limit.

I'm a leather-wearing, burger-eating kind of animal-rights activist. I believe that humane treatment of animals doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with an alternative lifestyle or great sacrifice.

I don't have all the facts on seal hunts or Canada's seal population, but I think the hunt and the industry are disgusting.

Donau, I hope your E320 doesn't have leather seats. I hope you don't wear leather shoes, either. Or anything like that. I suppose I don't want to offend you, but I'm always curious as to why some people value the lives of animals so much. Is it an ethical issue? Does "animal protection" mean you are against only animal cruelty, or their killing whatsoever? Plus, is it morally wrong for a lion to eat an antelope after killing it savagely?

I like Osna's phrase, only I would have to say I'm an animal-rights inactivist, of sorts. I would prefer animals be treated nicely, I wouldn't say humanely because of all the baggage that term brings, but in the end I have no problem with those animals being killed for food or clothing, and I don't go out of my way to pay more for free range meat and eggs or whatever.

Thanks for your comments Snake. One of the excuses I had for getting the E320 instead of E500 was that here in the US the E500 does not come with MB Tex, only leather. So, I got the E320 with artificial leather. Of course the steering wheel, while mostly wood, has some leather. It's a tough world we live in, for example, insist on being a vegan vegetarian and have job where you have to travel all the time. You want to be stubborn and stick to your principles? Well, suit yourself and get sick because on the road there aren't always vegan vegeterian restaurants. In fact most restaurants use cheeses excessively in their foods. So, one has to start making compromises because we all need to live. About shoes, I actually can't give you an answer because I am not too sure whether the soles are leather or not. The rest of the shoes are not leather. But to live so strictly is impossible and I have just adopted the practice of avoiding leather in clothing when I have a choice and I am aware of it. With food, I always go with Vegan if I can.
No worries about the offence question. None taken. I realize these issues are touchy and people get emotional one way or another when discussing them. For my part, and I hope you interpret this as just an honest differing of attitudes (in the neutral sense of the word) and no intent to offend you, I have a hard time understanding questions like: "...why people value the lives of animals so much?". I wish nobody had to ask this question and would regard all life on earth worth protecting and caring for.
Animal cruelty should in my mind be punishable by at least the same punishments as are being used for humans. Personally, I also hate killing animals, whether it happen by means of butchery, torture killings, hunting or any other means. About your lion/antelope example, the discussion would probably lead too far for anyone to care to read, but suffice it to say that the human morals are probably not transferrable to the animal kingdom where more primitive laws of survival are dominant. In most cases though, animals only kill for food. The humans have free thinking and perhaps more importantly, free will. The freedom to choose. Animals do not in the same way, their dependencies are much more built in.

I guess it is in our human nature not to see cruelty done to any living thing. I mean the cocoroach thing you pointed out reminds me of when I was a child and would do cruel things to lizards and roaches. Nevertheless, I think you grow out of this.

I think that us humans, or at least a big portion of us, see animal cruelty as wrong because it seems that us the human have more power of these animals. Therfore, with that said they cannot in any way defend themselves.