Wow, I would respond to his response (I can't bring myself to call it "rebuttal") but I think that others have made those arguments already, only to have it bounce off Ps3's impregnable OMG CRUEL kneejerk reaction.

Just one thing...

You talk about bringing in other predators (instead of man) to control the population. How do you suppose these predators would "control" the seal population? It's not with seal condoms, I can tell you that. They will KILL them.

If you think bashing their brains in is too cruel -- even through they are dead in a few seconds at most -- why does your proposed alternative involve animals that will chase down and viciously tear apart the very same seals, clawing or biting through flesh, ripping their guts out, and maybe even starting to EAT while the seal is still dying.

If that is your more humane alternative, I have to ask: What the fuck are you thinking?

DOLPHINS have developed tools to help them hunt for food, according to new research, which suggests the mammals could be even smarter than previously thought.

Bottlenose dolphins from an extended family in Australia’s Shark Bay have taken to protecting their noses with pieces of sponge when foraging for fish on the abrasive sea bed.

Scientists at Georgetown University in Washington DC believe a single dolphin discovered the foraging technique by chance and then passed it on to her offspring. Its use has had a marked impact on the dolphins’ hunting and social behaviour as the animals deploying the sponge tool spend more time alone, rummaging through sand.

While several animals use tools by instinct – such as birds that cover themselves with leaves for camouflage — the US scientists say discovering a new tool is a direct sign of intelligence.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5439491.ece

^ Awesome. I like how the male dolphins have to hide their nerdy behavior.

Do you even know how many animals have gone extinct? Animals go extinct naturally every day, even without human interference.

Rant:
Heard of shark finning? look that shit up, it's actually interesting. Hunt the Apex predator of the sea and shit happens. Seriously I'll wait. My point was, I think the human species needs to learn for itself.

You know how we love modern medicine? well according to this publication about AIDS I read (I forgot the article but you can look it up), 95% of the increases in life expectancy have come from clean water, proper sanitation, and good food. Vaccines and Antiobiotics haven't had nearly as great of effect (sure they have helped the minority of people who would get sick or have gotten sick). Point being, I think we are on a nice trend called 'progress' to eventually reduce the quality of our water and food....that way we get sick more and the more people need more drugs. I'm starting to think that in the last century humans have created many of their own problems.

Rant off

^ Smallpox killed 300-500 MILLION people in the twentieth century. Consider that a vaccine was developed in the 1800s and it was ERADICATED in the wild in the 70s.

And you don't know them (the sealers), so stop telling them how to live their fucking lives!

"But still, are the seal hunters that hungry they need to kill 300,000 seals a year. I don't think so. I think they are just bored."

• Are you so hungry that you NEED to kill dozens of cows and chickens each year? No? Shall I make presumptions about you?

"It's because no animal should be beat to death and dragged away and skinned while they are still alive."

• This is simply a lie. Paul McCartney and his ex-wife tried to pull this on on Newfoundland's Premier, Danny Williams. The video you've likely seen of that is over 10 years old and was an isolated incident. I'm sure most of these hunters wouldn't do such a horrid thing as not killing an animal before continuing to skin, despite its cries. I know of the video you speak. Yes it is disgusting. Yes that man was cruel. Yes he should suffer whatever consequences that could have been dealt. But most of them would not do something like this.

I've never talked to someone who was so blatently ignorant to facts as you have been during this discussion. You just keep turning back to the argument of "But their SEALS! cute!"

@PS3

This makes me very sad dude, serisouly. Many people have tried to give you facts about the hunt to try and justify why it exists while you scream at the top of your lungs " NAH NAH NAH I'M NOT LISTNING THEIR CUTE!!" at the top of your lungs and their the wrong ones? You've made personal attacks on honest people doing a job, which is the exact equlivent of what happens to every animal that you do eat, ignored every logic put towards you and blatently stated that birds, fish and god knows what else are less important then seals. This makes me so very sad......

i understand you don't like the idea of seals getting beaten to death, really i do. It's not a happy thought, but to just refuse to belive that a cow dies a much worse death after a much worse life , because it's socaly excptable to eat beef? I belive that borders on insane.  What pushes me over the border of insanity is that when people finaly get sick of taking to a brick wall that can only repeat " i don't like it so it's wrong" you just spurt out with " you just don't like what i'm saying".

The upshot of what i'm trying to say here is this: i understand that you don't like it and that's perfectly fine, not everybody who eats meat has to be a butcher. What's not fine is saying "because I don't have a use for it's wrong and should stop", or saying "cuteness determines your importance and right to live", or "it's fine to do this to one animal but not to another". It is especaly wrong to say "i don't understand this so i am going to condem it even though i am a party to much the same thing on animals that are less cute." As i said, you don't have to be a butcher to eat meat, but you do have to admit that an animal died so you could live, and you really should realize that animals raised as our food have very shitty lives. minimum space, minimum food, horrible transpot conditions and brutal deaths.

i'm not going to try and convince you anymore, you want to look like a happy asshole, go right ahead. Just remember, seals are mamals, mamals are red meat and you have admited to eating red meat.

.

Very true final fan. Progress, always seems to have a tradeoff meaning survival of everyone and then dieing from air pollution, water pollution, malnutrition etc. I just don't have that much faith in science I guess. I found this article interesting, although i'm not certain to its validity.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070813162438.htm

Here's something that seems obvious in retrospect but a lot of people overlook its ramifications: everybody dies.

Way more people die of cancer than in past centuries. Is there a cancer epidemic? Well, I don't know, but it's probably more due to the fact that most people AREN'T dying of smallpox or yellow fever or tuberculosis etc. etc. If we cured cancer they would be dying of something else (after a longer life of course).

On the other hand, overpopulation is causing a lot of problems, which I think that article was about -- I read it but I already don't remember exactly what it was saying.

Me neither. My question was really should we try to continually fight nature or except mortality? It seems like the equilibrium is thrown off by progress in medicine and modern civilization in general. Travel makes disease mobile, Manageable hereditary 'defects' stay in the gene pool, and the world gets closer to a truly catastrophic disease.

I wish we had evidence of mortality rates in older times (hunter-gatherer times, not medieval times or even roman times) to see what life expectancy was then. It would be an interesting comparison.

Luckily for most is that HIV is so hard to spread compared to other viral diseases.

This is the random shit I think about, although I wouldn't be one to advocate anything. I'm perfectly happy in my bubble.