[EyeBrock]

Too late andy. I've made my 'black-and-white' decision.

You were wrong and no amount of posting will change my mind. Now run along like a good chap.

[andyt]

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

You were wrong and no amount of posting will change my mind.

Rigid to the end, eh?

[EyeBrock]

You know me andy. These Colours don't run.

[raydan]

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

You know me andy. These Colours don't run.

I want to know, EB, are you against the killing of narwhals for the tusks?

If so, are you against the trapping of all animals for the pelt if the meat goes unused?

I'm not trying start a fight, just want to know.

Mind you, pelts do have a certain utility in making warm articles of clothing and tusks seem only to be used for decorative items, from what I could find.

[EyeBrock]

If there is a viable population, as in seals, I see nothing wrong with harvesting/hunting/killing them. I don't know too much about Narwhals but if they are endangered, they shouldn't be hunted whether it's first nations or not.

When I landed in NFLD fresh off the boat from tree-hugging England, I was aghast at the notion of clubbing seals. After a few years there, watching the collapse of the fishery and the damage out of control seal populations do to the fishery, I put the livelihood of rural Newfies on a higher footing than a seal’s life.

Obviously the cod fishery collapse was more down to over fishing and the loss of the squid population than it was to seals but those cute little seals eat about 8% of their body weight per day. With literally hundreds of thousands of seals out there, that’s a lot of fish.

Seals have been hunted along NFLD for centuries. Once the seal hunt was stopped or severely limited the seal population exploded. If a province where there are few natural resources available, can control the population without making it extinct and provide employment on that Rock I’m all for it.

[Lemmy]

Vermin, no matter how cute they are, need their populations controlled. If the pelts (or any other part of the carcas) can provide a human benefit, great. If not, well, too bad, but population control is still needed.

We get the same debates in rural Ontario with the white-tailed deer hunt. Yeah, deer are cute. But if their populations aren't controlled then they become an incredible danger to automobile travel. Then, those that don't get clobbered by vehicles, starve themselves to death in droves once winter roles in. It's better to hunt them and make productive use of their flesh than to have it wasted and endanger human life in the process.

[raydan]

I Wikied... sue me.

They do say, "...for meat".
Can anybody confirm or deny?

$1:

Narwhal have been harvested for over a thousand years by Inuit people in Northern Canada and Greenland for meat and ivory and a regulated subsistence hunt continues to this day. While populations appear stable, the narwhal has been deemed particularly vulnerable to climate change due to a narrow geographical range and specialized diet.

[andyt]

raydan raydan:

I Wikied... sue me.

They do say, "...for meat".
Can anybody confirm or deny?

$1:

Narwhal have been harvested for over a thousand years by Inuit people in Northern Canada and Greenland for meat and ivory and a regulated subsistence hunt continues to this day. While populations appear stable, the narwhal has been deemed particularly vulnerable to climate change due to a narrow geographical range and specialized diet.

I would have been very surprised to hear otherwise. Traditional innuit aren't going to risk their lives hunting an animal just for the tusk, and food was way too precious to let any of it go to waste.

I wonder how things are different now tho, where no Innuit is living a totally traditional lifestyle. I wonder if they now do like the Makah, hunt just to make a point that they can, cut off a bit of the meat and then head to McDonald's for supper, let the whale rot on the beach. If the Narwhal didn't have that tusk, how many would still be hunted? (Which is the same question I asked about the seals and their fur).