7,000 "chevaux" écorchés vivants

[animo-aequoanimo 0]

Editor,
The Telegram
St. John's,
Newfoundland and Labrador


Dear Editor,

Would you believe that somewhere in Canada, there is a horse farm
that skins 7,000 horses alive every year? Being skinned alive is
probably on par to being burnt alive on the pain scale. Anyone
doubting this, try peeling your next hang-nail backwards please. We
know that cat and dogs are being tortured hideously before being
killed for meat, but that is in Korea. To skin horses by the
thousands alive, here in Canada? Incredible.

True. But change "horse" to "seal", and it suddenly becomes
acceptable, respectable, promotable, and in fact actively promoted
by the government. Further, the government uses tax-payers' money to
employ the Coast Guard to make sure that the atrocity is not
observed. Why is that? Are seals less susceptible to pain than
horses? What do you call deliberately imparting pain on a sentient
being? Webster calls it "sadism". How can making profit justify
sadism? There is one person we can ask.

Simple. Statistics, stupid. In your article titled "IFAW wants
apology" (March 9, 2006), the Newfoundland premier justifies
skinning 7,000 baby seals alive, and/or by some other horrendous
method which even he would consider inhumane, by proudly quoting a
2002 Canadian Veterinary Medical Association report, which found
that "98 per cent of seals are killed in an acceptably humane
manner" 98% posiitive means 2% negative. Just 2%? It certainly
doesn't sounds even 1% as bad as 7,000, does it? Everything is
relative, but here is something absolute. At about one meter per
seal, a single file of 7,000 live-skinned seals stretches 7
kilometers, or 35 city blocks. Walk this distance as a meditative
experience please, Mr. Willams..

Mr. Williams is smart. He chooses the report that gave the highest
pecentage figure for the number of those seals deemed killed
humanely, by whatever lowered threshold of evaluation on
humaneness. I have read other equally authoritative reports, some
rating the percentage of seals killed inhumanely at 10%, 20%, or
even 40%.

Ultimately, it come to the moral quality of the human species. Is
it morally justifiable to deliberately skin-alive even one seal, or
one horse, or one dog, or one cat, for any reason?

Here is a test for the moral fibre of Mr. Williams. Hakkapics are a
dime a dozen. Here is one for you, Mr. Williams. And here in front
of you is a totally helpless and defenseless baby seal. Don't worry
Mr. Williams, it is older than 2 weeks and has sprung a few grey
hairs. Go ahead and bash it, Mr. Williams. Oh, and you missed
crushing its skull and it is still moving? Here is a knife. Go
ahead, skin it, Mr. Williams.

"B-But I'm not a sealer," stutters Williams. I know. You are
worse. Whereas a sealer who kills 100 seals has the blood of 100
seals on his hands, Mr. Williams, your hands are dripping with the
blood of 350,000 sentient creatures, what the Chinese call "sea
leopards".

Anthony Marr, founder
HOPE-CARE Foundation
604-222-1169
Vancouver, BC.