Hunting seals

[Kobun]

How many have been hunting seals? (Not the Navy type)
What kind of a gun did you use?

Seals are supposed to be weary of your presense, so hunting them while in the water, you will need to give them a lobotomy, because if you hit them in the lungs, they will sink.

I might get the chance this year, but I'll have to get a suitable gun for it.
One that can take a bit of salt water wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

[Sunray]

"...weary of your presense..." Yes, they are wary of your presence. Everything in the Arctic eats them. Saw something somewhere, likely long, ago about the Inuit using .22 Hornets for seals. Our Canadian Rangers get to use the rifle they get issued from the CF to hunt with. They used .303's at one time and it seems to me I saw something about them still using the No. 4 because it's far more reliable than any FN or C7 in extreme cold.

 

[Selfdfenz]

Pardon me Gentlemen for asking what may be a silly question but what do you do with seals. Can they be eaten?
I assume that becasue seal skin (seal fur) was once used for garments (was it gloves??) that is still a possibility. Just wondering. Is the hair kept on or taken off to make some form of leather?

S-

 

[BerettaNut92]

A spiked club

 

[mete]

Yes they can , and I have eaten seal. Various garments can be made not just gloves - jackets etc . Inuit clothing often has the fur on the inside...The Inuit take head shots ,then the problem is to get the seal before it sinks. Canada is opening up seal hunting again, in large numbers, in hopes of reducing the number of seal that eat fish.

 

[Stand_Watie]

I want a sealskin coat for when I visit the folks up north.

I'd prefer a white one, they're supposed to be a lot softer, but I don't think the Canadians club the pups anymore

 

[Chuck Dye]

Long before the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, I was treated to samples of seal (species unknown, may have been sea lion) and beluga whale. Tasty stuff. If memory serves, though, you should not eat the liver, it is so rich in vitamin A it is toxic. Don’t know what the LD-50 might be.

 

[Art Eatman]

Any coat made with the hair in is gonna be warmer than one made for purty, with the hair out. Dead air is an insulator, so hair-in means dead air and the hide is the windbreak.

Same deal for a wool lining of a tight-weave denim, or goose-down inside nylon.

Or glass wool inside the walls of a house, for that matter. Dead (unmoving) air.

, Art

 

[Selfdfenz]

That's cool. We have animals here in Texas that have hides adaptable to clothing but seal is not something you might encounter food-wise.

It's interesting they sink. I guess I would have thought their body fat would have been enough to make then float.

Interesting but that is one of the reasons THR is such an interesting place. Never know what you might learn.

Good luck with the seal hunt.
S-

 

[Kobun]

Yes, you can eat the animal.
I think that only the best meat is used by those that eat them, and as mentioned, the liver might be toxic.
As for what you do with them:
-Shoot them (Target practice)
-Cut off their jaw and send it to a laberatory.
-Recieve check.

I have been told you get $70 for each jaw.
A little further north than where I live, there has been very little interest in the hunt, so when you get a permit, you can tag as many as you want.
I talked to a guy that planned to spend his summer with a friend hunting.
They can shoot up to 400 seals, giving them $28500 for their efforts.

The problems with seals is that they eat fish. Very much fish.
For several years the tree (and seal?) huggers got a ban on killing seals.
This has resulted in an explotion in the number, and this really taxes the fish population.
Look at it as shooting prairie dogs. Big BIG prairie dogs that swim.

 

[stevelyn]

Yes seal can be eaten. They are very good although I prefer the oil rather than the meat. The Inupiat and Yupik usually use .223s or other centerfire .22s.

The liver might be toxic.

The livers of most marine mammals have high levels of Vitamin A that can be lethal.

Mmmmmm..................beluga muktuk.

 

[Selfdfenz]

So hunting them is also 'resouce balancing.'

We have quiet a few deer herds in the US that would benefit from some balancing but you can't explain that to the city dwellers that feed Bambi in the back yard then wonder the following spring why the same Bambi is eating their bushes to the ground and costing them 5000$ when it runs into front of their Saab.

The closest we come down this way that I know of is the project in Louisiana to get ridd of nutrea. They pay a small fee for those brought in. Sadly, as I understand it, only residents of the state can participate.

It would be great recreation and benefits the wetlands greatly as these animals are supremely damaging to the ecosystem and ( I think) have no natural preditors to speak of in the way the do in SA where they come from.
The vitamin A thing is very interesting. Wonder they they accumutate it so.

Good luck guys and try not to fall out of the boat

S-

 

[HABU]

Hunting seals? In Washington we have MANY seals but are unable to stabilize the population. Major no no. I have seen one seal meet its demise on a rock, thanks to JMB. I'd like to relieve the state of some seals. They ruin beaches, steal your salmon off the end of your line and are a general nuisance at the marinas. Way over healthy population levels.

 

[Ardent]

Stand_Watie---> I truly hope you are joking or I have missinterpreted your point. Seal pup clubbing was a disgusting practice that I am ashamed to say some fellow Canadians participated in. It truly was disgraceful, unabashed rape and pilage of the environment, and I say this as a Canadian hunter and fisherman. I'm all for hunting, but lets include morals such as fair chase and decency. That's my small change.

Ardent

 

[Art Eatman]

Ardent, there are two parts to your view: First, the method; and second, the environmental aspects.

I'm not sure I see clubbing as bad. The purpose was for fur, so clubbing meant no bullet holes. Further, if a group of men is shooting, there is some danger to each other, and some chance of overpenetration into animals not intended for harvest.

Second, if the numbers taken did not reduce the viability of the species for continued survival, no environmental harm of consequence occured. Over-harvest, of course, is definitely a Bad Thing. As I understand it, the numbers were controlled by the Canadian Government; presumably the herds were vetted by wildlife biologists.

Seal pups are cute, but SFAIK the populations are stable. Fish aren't particularly cute, so there's little public outcry over the reduction of the Atlantic Giant Tuna to some 10% of its one-time numbers. There's little public outcry that the "good fish" such as cod and halibut are dramatically depleted and we now are sold what once were considered "trash fish".

If you're really concerned about "rape and pilage (sic)" of the environment, look to the fish populations, not the seals.

Art

 

[Selfdfenz]

"If you're really concerned about "rape and pilage (sic)" of the environment, look to the fish populations, not the seals."

X-ring Art. I've followed the downward trend in many world fisheres for decades. The recruitment numbers are depressing and scary. We (humans in general) have just about cleaned out some species. Too bad you can't fish farm cod, pollock etc.

S-

 

[Kobun]

Ardent, would you say the same thing about killing baby mice and rats at grain elevators?
It is calculated that seals eat something like $1 billion worht of fish along the Norwegian ocean.
I wonder what the number along the US Pasiffic is. Staggering I guess.
When you let one species take over, it eats and eats untill other species go extinct.
This is in none of our interests (nor seal nor man), but the seals don't heave the brain to see this, limit their own birthrate or start fishfarming themselves.
So, it is up to us. Eighter leave things alone, and have a seal population out of control that will empty the oceans, starve and get sick.
Or we can harvest what nature brings.
The white fur of baby seals were nice and soft, and very good for making gloves, but you don't see that anymore.

 

[Ardent]

You all have good points, however I stand by what I said. I am ashamed it took place. We as hunters would (hopefully) find clubbing fawns to death dispicable as well if it were practical. If you have ever seen seal pup clubbing happening on video or in person, you might feel how I do. It is enough to make you gag. Watching the mothers seals frantically trying to chase off the hunters as they close in and club the screaching seal pup to death. And frequently, the seal pups were not dead when they were skinned, only incapacitated. I don't know about you folks, but this just seems morally wrong to me. That said, I have no problem with seasonal (adult) seal hunting out of breeding season.

Another side of the coin:

I have done a fair bit of salmon fishing on the Pacific coast of Canada here where I live and have seen many half eaten salmon reeled in. Yes, it is frustrating, but I remind myself the seals were here long before we were. It seems too often we step into nature's course and muck it up although we mean well. Like the Australian toad epidemic, killer bees, and non native species introduction worldwide. Granted, we have copius numbers of seals on the west coast. To me however that doesn't mean a mass slaughter to put the population in check is warranted. Nature is self regulating, at a point when fish populatiuons drop too low, so will seal numbers. It is the cycle of life.

In closing, as for managed hunting, I'm all for it, but I think I've made clear why I have a problem with pup clubbing.

Ardent

 

[Art Eatman]

"Harvesting" the fur seal pups by clubbing has nothing to do with hunting. It's purely a commercial venture.

As far as the "brutality" of clubbing, I see it as no different from slaughtering cattle by the use of a sledge-hammer between the eyes at Swift or Armour&Co. When I was a kid, if we were to have chicken for dinner I'd catch a chicken and take an axe and chop off the head. I'd jump back and watch the headless chicken run and flutter and spray blood in all directions.

Since people first figured the method, millenia ago, hogs have been slaughtered by hanging them from the hind legs and cutting the aorta. Lots of squealing and lots of blood, as the heart exsanguinates the body. The meat is cleaner, that way.

As I've aged and learned, I've come to the belief that whether or how any one animal gets killed is relatively unimportant, outside the arena of what's commonly called "sport hunting". What's most important is that that animal's species be healthy.

Sport hunting involves all the stuff about ethics and clean kill that we've quite often talked about here. I don't want to get into that in this thread.

I have no personal knowledge of the relative populations of seals and fish around Norway. I'm assuming Kobun's knowledge and commentary are based on reports from their wildlife/fisheries biologists. If the "mass Killing" actually creates a more proper balance, I have no problem. Certainly I don't have any facts to use in argument against the program.

Sometimes peoples' use of various aspects of nature create improper situations, and it's merely exercising responsibility to undo the damage. Sometimes that which is required is non particularly pleasing. It can be over-harvest of fish or animals or timber; or over-grazing on ranches and "burnout" of farmlands...

Art

 

[Ardent]

Duly noted, your distinction between harvesting and sport hunting is quite appropriate. I'm deffinately not trying to say you or anyone else is wrong, for me however it is a moral issue.

Ardent

 

[NRA4LIFE]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20625-2004Apr17.html

In case anybody was unaware, the harp seal clubbing is alive and well. They are not allowed, however, to take the white babies. They must wait to club them until they are about 13 days old.

 

[Stand_Watie]

You're perfectly welcome to your opinion Ardent, but no, I wasn't joking. I've seen video of seals being clubbed and find it no more morally offensive than killing any other animal.

A hard smack between the eyes is no crueler than a bullet.

If killing seals, or killing baby seals is environmentally unsound, then it shouldn't be done, but I utterly reject your morals of "fair chase" or "decency" in hunting. I support hunting primarily for food, clothing, varmint control or financial gain. Sport is a reasonable secondary consideration, but is irrelevant to my morality.

Introducing a grossly subjective moral judgement like decency into the argument is playing right into the anti-hunters hands.

Cows and deer have big beautiful brown eyes as well, but I have no problem with eating beef or venison.

 

[Leaky Waders]

Here, in mississippi, beaver have a bounty on the tails...you wack them and turn the tail in for a profit.

As for baby seals and stuff...I don't like it either. I'm not judging anyone...I just don't like it personally. I know, intellectually, that it's not much different from a slaughter-house. But, there's no fair chase in it. I don't know - it just seems kind of wrong to me.

It's kind of like shooting a baby elephant or fawn or baby racoon or something. Where's the sport in it?

Didn't they hunt Dodo birds with clubs too? Of course they weren't as proliphic as the seals apparently seem to be.

Like most of you know, I enjoy hunting - mainly waterfowl and upland game. The seal pup thing to me isn't really hunting...it's more of a harvest.

L.W.

 

[Stand_Watie]

As for baby seals and stuff...I don't like it either. I'm not judging anyone...I just don't like it personally. I know, intellectually, that it's not much different from a slaughter-house. But, there's no fair chase in it. I don't know - it just seems kind of wrong to me. It's kind of like shooting a baby elephant or fawn or baby racoon or something. Where's the sport in it?

God or evolution, whichever you prefer, gave us a squeamish factor that helps most people in rearing their offspring. I think that is where your 'it just seems kind of wrong' feelings come from.

Provided of course that they either need killing, or that killing them is environmentally neutral I have no problem with killing baby elephants, fawns or racoons if it's done for food, clothing, varmint control or profit.

I've eaten road killed fawn. Not as tender as veal, but better than any other venison I've had.

 

[Art Eatman]

An important thing in discussions like this is to NOT lump stuff together. We gotta keep stuff specific to each part of the deal.

Some of it has to do with species numbers. Some of it has to do with the difference between hunting and harvesting. Some of it has to do with the ethics of fair chase.

And we gotta be careful about analogies. What was done to the dodo was wrong. Species extinction and all that. I don't see how that can be compared to any sort of killing where there are controls as to numbers and methods.

The seals are being harvested for their fur. It is not at all "hunting".

Certain species are pests, and are killed to prevent or reduce damages, etc. The most obvious is the rat, but as mentioned the beaver can be a problem in some places. In others, it's the nutria.

Think, dang it! Think!

, Art