Ah, so they're biased as well. But I DID go and check out the PETA sites they were discussing as being lead-ups to becoming PETA members. That's just disgusting, targeting children like that, handing out comics where their parents are portrayed as monsters, and letting convicted felons into elementary schools to give lectures.
No matter how it's shown, I can't see PETA as being anything more than a destructive influence, a demeaning organization, and I think it's insulting that they put animals above, or even on direct parity with sentient beings. I don't think that means that animals don't have feelings, but as a human being, I put more value on human life than that of an animal. If I'm in a burning building, and there's an unconcious child and an unconcious dog, and I can only carry one... I'll take the kid. Sure, I don't like anything dying, and I don't think animals should be treated poorly, but somewhere, we've got to draw a line seperating humans and animals.
To make another quote; 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!'
Earlier, I mentioned a comment made by an Anti-sealing activist, and after a bit of digging, I've found a wikipedia article on the guy. His comment is in the Controversy section, I think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Watson#Controversy
"In early April 2008, Watson stated that, while the deaths of three Canadian seal hunters (a fourth one is still missing) in a marine accident during the 2008 Canadian Commercial Seal Hunt may be considered tragic, he feels that the killing of seals is even more tragic. Canadian Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn said that Watson is gutless, shameless, and without a shred of human decency."
So, moving onto another controversial topic...
Don't feel that I'm directing this at anyone here, I'm just blowing off some steam about the Seal Hunt.
The strange thing about all the protests of the seal hunt... there is no big crisis. The Seals are not going extinct. There is no underpopulation. They've been commercially hunting seals for a long time; It's been happening for decades, unless you go back to when the Inuit first started, but I have no idea how long that's been.
It's opposed because people envision cute fluffy baby seals being killed, despite a complete ban on all pups(animal rights groups are quick to shift the focus from adult seals to their cute cuddly little pups). The population is stable at over five million seals, and less than half a million are hunted each year. In fact, it's below 300,000 right now.
People just don't understand the real figures, the reality of the hunt, and let themselves drink up dark fantasies painted by animals rights groups. People don't feel nearly so guilty about their chicken, pork, beef, and fish. It's that the population of the animals being killed is wild, and the hunters have to hunt is what makes people act weird. They don't react the same to slaughterhouses, the animals there were bred to be killed and eaten. What's so bad, then, about hunting a seal?
As a Canadian, I stand by the Seal Hunt, and feel that it's a perfectly legitimate aspect of our economy. Sorry if you disagree, but I feel no guilt about the seal hunt. It's just another industry, and it's only considered "bad" because people don't like the idea of cute seals being killed to put food on plates, clothes on backs, and keep the population from overgrowing, causing fish shortages, and of course, the deaths of many seals from slow, painful starvation.
The seal hunt is more humane than what would be created in the vacuum of it's existence.
