NL-Outsidethebox [confederation]

This is a comment I made to Sharon in PEI over on http://www.freenewfoundlandlabrador.blogspot.com/ in which she reposted Mr Watsons reply to Mr Higgins blog “What motivates seal hunt protest groups?”

I think we can all agree on one thing. According to Mr Watson's comments Canada DFO has dropped the ball and left NL and the seals out to hang at the expense of trade concessions to the foreign draggers.

I commend the SeasShepard society and its members for trying to stop the Foreign Trawler Dragger clear cutting of the ocean bottom, by experimenting with net rippers. But I seriously doubt this had any effect out in the vast ocean of Newfoundland and Labrador. What with the technology availably to these draggers. We can only hope though!

I think you would find NL'ians very receptive to stopping the foreign over fishing and destructive fishing of our coast. I'm willing to bet they would even put the seal Harvest on hold until the cod stocks could be better managed or a better way of harvesting a sustainable seal harvest could be found.Could you imagine the media coverage, fund raising possibilities if NL'ians and the SeaShepard foundation united to stop foreign over fishing and the destruction of ocean bottom!Now this would take alot of eating humble pie and putting the interests of the ecology of the Grand Banks and the planet first and Foremost IMHO.

More humane harvest?
I'm thinking Electric stun guns then lifted aboard a factory Slaughter house ship for processing and proper killing practices according to accepted industry standards already practiced in slaughter houses. No wastage and easier to monitor. Hilti guns shoot nail directly into brain of seals.

Please don't correct my comments Mr Watson like you found so necessary to do to Mr Higgins because you couldn't find any better argument. It just detracts from the issue and makes you look juvenile.

School teacher or animal activist, make up your mind?

Update:
How about some form of fork to pin the head of the seal with a third pin that shoots out directly into the brain?

This would remove the very gross swinging of the halapik to kill the animals? Protestor friendly killing practice.

It's all about disconnecting the act of killing from the actual killing.

I also suggested using chokers like used in logging to haul the either dead or unconscious seals onto a factory slaughter house/ship for humane slaughter house killing practices.

I received an email from a sealer saying that he didn't think this was feasible because the seals flippers were to small and pulling the seal against the grain of its fur would be to hard. I think he had a mind set though and wasn't willing to entertain new ideas and practices. I didn't mean a man would pull the seal but rather a winch set up should be used because adult seals weigh a couple of hundred pounds and pulling that on the ice by hand wouldn't be feasible anyway. Which is why I imagine they only take the skins and leave the carcass to rot.

I had another thought on the against the fur grain problem. Use a hook set up similar to a fishing hook and hook it into the seals mouth, this would eliminate the against the grain problem but the weight issue is still there for a manual labour set up.

A winch for a ATV only costs 100-200$ and could be used to pull several seal carcasses at a time with a off shoot of several leads set up.

This would also be an easier way of harvesting for the sealer and safer because each sealer would always have a life line.


Sealers could and should use crampons ice pik boots to harvest the entire seal. These crampons would allow the sealers to pull the larger seals and eliminate the need to leave the carcass because of weight and traction problems.
http://www.icespiders.com/