Seals

Seals are cute. Seals look cuddly. This year, Canadian fishermen will be authorized by the Canadian government to kill 325000 of them.

Well that sounds like a pretty big number. Must really be something, considering how much protest there is against it. Let us do a little comparison. How about fish - I mean, they are marine animals just like seals. Well, apparently 16kg of fish are caught in one year per person in the world. That's a lot of fish. 263 million kg per day according to my rough calculation, and more than ten times that weight in other marine life is sacrificed to catch these animals. But hey, I never see them swimming around here on the prairies. Besides, they have those freaky-looking eyeballs. How about something closer to home - how many chickens are killed? 23 million every day, just in the US. That's a lot. Well, chickens are just small and ugly anyway. Besides, they aren't mammals, like seals. How about a more common mammal - cows. Oh, 90 000 cows killed everyday?

If you are against the seal hunt, that is ok with me. But if you eat meat, you should take another look at what you're protesting. An animal, whose natural predators we have endangered, being killed in its natural environment. Is that worse than the chickens and cows living their lives in pens? Or fish being hauled in and dumped on the deck of a boat by the thousands? Is it because they are cute that you oppose the hunt? This doesn't make the hunt good, but maybe there is something more worthwhile to protest. And maybe you don't even have to protest, you just have to change yourself.