U.S. Olympian Threatened by Anti-Fur Activists

Johnny Weir staying in Olympic Village because of anti-fur activists
By Chris Chase

American figure skater Johnny Weir will stay in the Olympic Village because he's concerned about "very serious threats" from anti-fur activists.

The medal hopeful had planned to stay in a hotel during the Games, but it would have been too difficult to arrange adequate security. Though there are no indications that any of the verbal and written threats from extremists were credible, Weir's decision to stay in the more secure village was an obvious choice.

He's right to take extra precautions during his time in Vancouver. Though the odds of one of these threats actually coming to pass are low, there's no reason for Weir to open himself up to the possibility. For peace of mind alone, staying in a secured Olympic Village is worth it.

At last month's U.S. Nationals, Weir earned the scorn of anti-fur protesters when he wore a white tuft of fox fur on his shoulder. He was defiant in the face of the criticism at first but later relented.

Weir has long been an enemy of animal-rights groups because of his costumes. It was a disappointment when he finally caved to their pressure. It's his job to look flamboyant. There's no need to listen to a small but vocal group who don't like it. Nothing would ever get accomplished if everyone in the world had to sign off on everything first.

Though those making threats to Weir are but an infinitesimal part of the animal-rights groups, they are a stain on the movement. Maybe PETA and Friends of Animals should spend more energy denouncing those who threaten rather than those who wear.

Seal industry Supporters Offer Funding to PETA.

In what can only be described as an astonishing twist on the seal hunt debate a pro industry group calling itself Seal Industry Supporters of Canada (SISC) has publicly offered make a “very significant ” donation to the anti-sealing group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), but the offer comes with a catch.

SISC approached PETA with the offer today on the heals of PETA’s latest publicity stunt, one in which a monetary offer was made to the City of Halifax if it agreed to name its sewer treatment plant the “Seal Slaughter Stinks Plant”.

In an open letter to PETA executives SISC has issued a counter offer of their own in which SISC will donate a “significant” sum of money to the extremist group if they agree to change their organization’s name to one SISC members feel is far more descriptive of PETA’s ongoing activities.

To qualify for the funding SISC is asking that PETA change its name to Humans Using Naivety To Secure Easy & Affluent Lifestyles or HUNTSEALS.

When asked about the validity of the financial offer the SISC spokesperson described it as “quite serious”.

He went on to say, “For years PETA has used the mainstream media and Hollywood star power to distribute its misleading propaganda and as a means of convincing countless donors to part with vast amounts of cash.”

“PETA is heavily funded by largely well meaning but misinformed individuals who believe they are doing their part to protect endangered or abused animals. In the case of the Canadian seal population, this is not the case.”

“Although PETA depicts little white seals in their fund raising campaigns in reality the hunting of white coat seals has been illegal on Canada for several decades. The seal population in the region is not endangered, in fact it’s at a 40 year high (in excess of 5.6 million animals) and the sealing industry itself is one of the most tightly controlled, heavily regulated and strictly monitored animal related industries anywhere in the world.”

“What it boils down to is this. Images of fluffy white seals being towered over by large men bring in a lot of money for these groups. When was the last time you saw a truly threatened, though less lovable, species like a cod fish on a PETA poster? Never mind that the growing seal population eats millions of tons of treatened cod every year, they don't bring in donations so they don't get any attention. It’s that simple."

When asked to quantify the actual dollar value of the PETA offer, should that group decide adopt the name “KILLSEALS” the SISC spokesperson would only say, “Rest assured that it’s enough to buy a lot of first class airline tickets and pay for plenty of lattes at Starbucks so the PETA leadership can continue living the good life they’ve become accustomed to living.”

Government of Canada Acts to Protect Atlantic Fish Population

Sorry folks, I hope you'll indulge me, but I just couldn't resist this one (see previous article)

Against incredible odds the determined people of Atlantic Canada are working diligently to curb the ever increasing menace of a large ice rat population that is causing untold damage to the Nation's commercial fish stocks.

The Canadian government, in partnership with local fishermen, is planning an organized and efficient hunt of the growing ice rat population in March of this year.

Large bodied ice rats can often be found along the East Coast of Canada in the late winter and early spring as they migrate on ice packs from the frigid north.

Recent population estimates for this dangerous carnivore, some weighing in excess of 100 pounds, place the population at between 5 and 6 million animals.

This number is more than 10 times the human population in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador near where most of the ice rats migrate each spring.

In recent years there have been an increasing number of reports of large ice rats traveling in packs of a dozen or more, trapping large numbers of valuable commercial fish species, such as the endangered Atlantic cod, into local bays and decimating thousands at a time in a wild feeding frenzy.

Ice rats have been videotaped leaving the ice, swimming up under large cod fish, ripping the stomachs out of them and eating their soft underbellies before leaving the fish behind and moving on to its next victim.

Recently small numbers of ice rats have also been spotted further inland on the island of Newfoundland, in places where they have never been seen before. These individuals are believed to be traveling along river beds and streams to hunt and eat inland fish such as salmon or trout.

Environmentally alert and ecologically sensitive local fishermen have expressed no interest in completely ridding the coastal areas of the migrating ice rats which are native to the North Atlantic region. Fishermen are instead hopeful that an annual hunt, with a well managed quota, will help ensure that the population does not expand or encroach further into more populated areas.

As one fisherman put it, "We just want to keep these things under control. If we don't there won't be any fish left."

Recently the animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), which is known for its unique and often quirky activities when it comes to promoting their cause, also sounded the alarm by singling out the world's fish as a species at risk.

In an effort to promote the protection of the ocean's fish populations PETA has begun referring to all fish as "Sea Kittens" in the hope that people will be less likely to eat them.

As PETA campaign co-ordinator Ashley Byrne told Canwest News Service this week, "Knowing that the fish sticks in the school cafeteria are really made out of tortured sea kittens makes most kids want to lose their lunch."

With a similar goal in mind, Canadian fishermen are also hoping to protect the overall Atlantic fish or "Sea Kitten" population by limiting the growing numbers of ice rats, sometimes called harp seals, which are known to destroy millions of tons of "Sea Kittens" each and every year.

By Myles Higgins

PETA's Public Manipulation and Propaganda

For anyone who missed it, or who doesn't read the Telegram regularly, there is an editorial in the paper this week that I just couldn't resist bringing to your attention.

Normally I'm not one to promote a newspaper that I personally find too federalist in its direction for my tastes, but this is an exception worth making.

For decades the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as others who participate in the Atlantic seal harvest, have been demonized and hounded by animal rights groups like the Sea Shepherd Society, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and others.

For just as long the people in this region, unlike the group's supporters, have recognized these organizations for what they are, self serving, opportunistic, business interests.

While PETA may claim to defend the "Ethical" treatment of animals, ethics are the furthest thing from their minds when it comes to finding ways to bloat their bank accounts.

Their latest attempt at public manipulation calls into question their definition of ethical and makes it abundantly clear that whatever their definition of ethics may be it surely doesn't align with the one held by a vast majority of the population.

This of course leads us back to the Telegram editorial and it's humorous, though insightful, look at PETA's latest propaganda campaign.

I've always said, when you can get your point across through humor it's always a good thing.

Here are some excerpts from that editorial entitled, "PETA's Latest Ploy".

Enjoy.

You know they're only looking for news coverage, but it's so goofy, we just had to write about it.

...PETA has come up with a new marketing campaign to try and make fish cute, cuddly, and a little harder to sell.Their idea? Label the finned and scaled denizens of the deep "sea kittens."

...PETA campaign co-ordinator Ashley Byrne told Canwest News Service."Knowing that the fishsticks in the school cafeteria are really made out of tortured sea kittens makes most kids want to lose their lunch."

...Rebranding is the order of the day.

...PETA's efforts might even work to our advantage. After all, comedian Mark Critch argued ages ago that there would be much less protest over the seal hunt if seals were renamed "ice rats." (We'd better take some decisive action to stop those evil ice rats from eating up all those helpless sea kittens, don't you think?)

Why not go whole hog? Web-building spiders could be "nature weavers."

Rats? How about "dump puppies"?

Wait a minute - dump is just too gross. "Landfill puppies," then.

The new tuberculosis could be "slimfaster.

"Malaria? How about "the huggy shivers"?

Don't lose your job - accept an "employment freedom reassignment."

...But how about the animal rights groups? Shouldn't we rename them, too?How about "animal exploiters" or "pity abusers"?After all, they are multimillion-dollar businesses built on exploiting animal abuse for financial gain.

Heck, they're even willing to cash in on the longrunning ills of poor helpless sea kittens.How could they?...

All I can say is well said.

It is exactly this sort of public manipulation that has kept groups like PETA in business for so long and make no mistake about it, they are indeed a business and a very financially successful one.

Fortunately, at least around these parts there are people who understand the difference between utilizing the environment responsibility, including wild game, and abusing animals.

A good example of this kind of level headed thinking came from "Neil in St. John's" who commented on the editorial which is available on the Telegram web site.

Neil wrote, "I'm having fresh sea kittens for supper. Proably some piglet scrunchions (I think that's how it's spelled)....mmmmmmmm

Whale of a Cop Out

The following opinion piece appeared in today's Peterborough Examiner. It's well worth a read and a great note of reality to get Web Talk back in gear after a little summer hiatus.

By JOE WARMINGTON

Haven't heard anything about Paul McCartney firing up his private jet and heading to Kangiqsujuaq in northern Quebec in honour of the giant bowhead whale slaughtered with a grenade-harpoon last week.

No sign yet of his ex-wife Heather Mills, either.

Also no reports of tough guy Capt. Paul Watson on the high seas with his Farley Mowat icebreaker heading to Nunavik's Hudson Strait in protest.

Can't seem to find any reaction from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) or the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society?

It seems no one risked their lives to dive in front of this beauty as it was harpooned and shot to death by 20 Inuit hunters.

Wonder why that is?

Easier crowd to try to intimidate at Seaworld, I guess. Maybe there were no helicopters to rent or CNN crews to accompany them?

If it were Newfoundland sealers they'd sure be there. Remember, PETA are the same people who saw an opportunity to take out a sick ad in the hometown newspaper of slain Greyhound bus victim Tim McLean to make their point on how barbaric killing is.

"The animals don't benefit from our silence," its website explains as the reason for exploiting Mr. McLean's decapitation and cannibalistic victimization.

Why silence here?

Hypocrisy? Or do they see the historic and cultural right to hunt and feed their villages?

Is it different to them for indigenous peoples? The problem with that is, can the whale tell which human beings are bent on slicing him up?

Or was this whale, who managed to elude such indignity for decades, just unfortunate to have strayed into these waters?

It seems so since Inuit elders talk of not having killed one in generations.

"At the beginning I was really nervous because it's a huge animal," Noah Annahatak, 42, told Canadian Press's Andy Blatchford. "He was right underneath us and I (thought), 'Holy cow, how are we going to kill it?' "

Blatchford wrote "from the launch of Annahatak's first grenade-tipped harpoon, the hunters killed the whale with shotguns and traditional weapons in 30 minutes."

I had not known grenades and shotguns were traditional Inuit weapons.

Fisheries spokesman Patrick Vincent said the animal is stunned by the grenade, "ensuring a more humane" death.

"It was a very rapid hunt, so it is very unlikely that the animal actually suffered."

Are you sure? The words harpoon and grenade don't often conjure up a mood of tranquillity.

When animal welfare people talk about whaling by Japan or Norway, they talk of them being ruthless, cold-blooded murderers. Same goes for the sealers in Newfoundland and Labrador.

"I can't think of anything that defines helplessness and fear more than a seal pup on the ice that can't swim or escape as it is approached by some cigarette smoking ape with a club," Watson writes on his website. "These men are sadistic baby killers."

Are these hunters any different as far as that whale is concerned? I am open to receive calls from Paul or PETA for their side at any time.

Meanwhile, perhaps the most important part of this story is that the Inuit who killed this whale spent days "butchering it" and will send the meat out to 14 villages. "This is reclaiming something that was from our ancestors," Jimmy Johannes told the Canadian Press.

The thing is, when I was up in Labrador in June, I talked with non-aboriginal sealers who told me their grandfathers were also hunters and that every piece of the seal they harvest is used for their own food or their pelts are sold to feed their families.

"It's what we do here, see," Newfoundlander and seal hunter Nelson Prouse told me. "It's how we live and it's how we feed our families."

And it's how they get to meet stars like McCartney et al who seem selective in whose slaughter they protest and try to shut down.

Joe Warmington is a Sun Media columnist:

Seals, Kangaroos and Ex-Beatles - The Protest Continues

With the annual Atlantic seal harvest just around the corner it’s no wonder the activist contingent are once again hitting the bricks (or the ice floes) in yet another quest for your hard earned dollars.

Every year it’s the same sad story, some tired ass has-been star gets wheeled out before the cameras to make a plea on behalf of doe eyed animals around the world. All in the hope that society will suddenly change and cute animals everywhere will be spared. Nobody seems to give a rat’s ass about the ugly animals though, or about rat’s asses for that matter. Meanwhile the masterminds behind these former stars, groups like PETA, are not so much hoping for change as they're hoping you'll part with your spare change.

This year Sir Paul McCartney, former Beatle and ex-husband of uni-ped model, Heather Mills, has been invited to Newfoundland by a well meaning but misguided local in the hope he'll a) get the facts rather than believing the propaganda he’s been spoon fed and b) that he’ll actually spend some time in the province rather than just thinking he’s there as he did in 2006.

Yes, PEI is quite nice, but it’s not Newfoundland.

Unfortunately for his hopeful host Mr. McCartney may not make it for a photo op this year. News reports out of Australia have him protesting a planned cull of some 500 kangaroos in that Country.

It seems the 500 kangaroos (of which there are countless specimens in Australia) are destroying rare vegetation in an area that provides protection to several truly endangered species.

The fact that the kangaroos will first be injected with a tranquilizer then euthanized with a needle is very upsetting to Mr. McCartney. Oddly enough the potential destruction of the rare habitat, or for that matter the survival of that endanged animals there, doesn’t bother Sir Paul one iota. Go figure. They must be some really butt ugly animals.

According to Paul, who is a devout vegan, he stopped eating meat for a specific reason. It seems to have happened after an event in his life that he says he'll never forget. The truth is he may have already forgotten it because his story keeps changing depending on who he's speaking with.
According to conflicting reports, McCartney either saw Bambi and was upset that Bambi’s mother was shot in front of the little dear (or deer) or he was watching some lambs frolic in a meadow while eating lamb (might have been easier on him if he’d been drinking Lambs) or he had caught a trout and suddenly realized that he’d killed it (I'm not sure why he didn't know before hand that it would die, you know what they say about a fish out of water).

Maybe it’s just me but I’m thinking that Sir Paul could provide a much more valuable service than protesting this kangaroo cull. If he just called all those kangaroos aside and bent their ears with his ever changing story the poor animals might just line up for that injection and everyone would be happy. I know I would.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to see animals suffer any more than any sane person would but there are realities in life that we all need to face. People eat meat and, on occasion, people need to manage wild life for one reason or another (not that we are always that good at it).

The facts are not always pretty but these things are real and these alfalfa munching do-gooders need to realize that.

If someone came to Newfoundland tomorrow and honestly tried to protect the Atlantic cod or ensure that the endangered Moroccan crap beetle (I made that one up) was protected, I’d give them a shiny new dollar in a heart beat but the cuteness factor, of animals that aren’t endangered, is just not high on my list of priorities as a reason to donate or support someone just because a celebrity tells me I should.

Anyway, not to worry, I’m sure Paul will find a little time to make a comment or two about the annual seal harvest, even if it's from a sandy beach down under (no I don’t mean Mill Town).

As a side note, a polar bear was spotted on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland this week. Residents hope the bear doesn’t kill any seals along the shoreline for food. They worry headlines across Europe will scream: Seals Eaten Alive in Newfoundland.