What is wrong with people?

My biggest worry about the environment today has more to do with animals than with something that is actually environmental. I am especially concerned with marine mammals and the problems that often face them. In two North American countries right now, there are two fights going on over seals. In La Jolla, California, there is a Pacific Harbor Seal rookery in a place called Casa Beach. The residents of this town feel that the beach the seals use as a rookery should be reclaimed for public use. One argument that the folks interested in protecting the seals uses is that there are miles of shore line in and around the San Diego area that are useful for the public.

In fact, the author of the Save Our Seals website writes a "tiny group of people, motivated by greed and ignorance, has decided to endorse a destructive dredging of the beach, under the spurious notion that the seals 'pollute' the area with their presence. " While I might have agreed with this had I never visited the seals at La Jolla, they are truly fascinating. During a recent trip to San Diego, I was able to visit them during Birthing season and was privelaged to see the first newborn pup of the 2008 season. There is no way these animals are destructive and infact, removing them from the beach would cause these animals significant harm because they'd have to compete for rookery space on the Channel Islands where Sea Lions and Elephant Seals already rook.

More frightening and indeed more disgusting then the issue with the seals at La Jolla, is the problem of Canadian fisherman hunting Harp Seals. This year, the Canadian Government has approved the death of 275,000 seals, including pups. According to the Canadian Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn "The seal hunt is an economic mainstay for numerous rural communities in Atlantic Canada, Quebec and the North," however, there is grave criticism from international animal rights groups over this claim. According to the AP article "Canada raises quota for seal hunters" on MSNBC on 3/11, their general line is that "the largest marine mammal hunt in the world is cruel, difficult to monitor, ravages the seal population and doesn't provide a lot of money for sealers." This is clearly a complicated issue.