But they're so cute!

Welp, the big bad Canadians are at it again, kids! They're killing the helpless little seals.

Now, I think seals rock. They're so damned cute it's not even funny.

Unfortunately, they also devour an ever-dwindling fish stock off the Canadian shore. Canada's fish stocks have been depleting steadily for the last three decades (or the last four centuries, depending how literal you are), considering we've got some pretty wicked fish going on around here. Our economy on the East Coast has been absolutely devastated over the last three or four decades as a result of those fisheries going steadily down. If it's not humans killing fish, it's the seals.

So what's the solution? A little bit of both, I'd say: Impose stricter practices upon international fisheries that include tighter regulations on how trawlers operate, because trawlers are about as destructive as it gets, and yes, the culling of seals is a necessary evil as well.

The seal population's triple what it was in the '70s, and growing leaps and bounds, yet the celebrities and animal rights' organizations don't tell you that.

These mammals aren't just cute and fuzzy, they're about 200kg, fully grown. They eat a lot of fish, every single day. (Strangely, having checked numerous sites, no one's giving figures on how much they actually eat per day, except for the fact that they eat 67 varieties of fish, and 70 varieties of invertabrates. Hmm. Quantities, anyone? Anyone?) There are six million seals in the region being culled, and of those, 325,000 are up for grabs. But 6 million mammals with an average weight of 200kg feeding on fish daily, well, you do the math.*

It's shitty, having to eliminate any of the cute pups, but really, it's about balance. Man disrupts the balance via his ignorance of nature. Trawlers churn up the ocean floor, dolphins and other would-be predators are caught in the nets, pollution levels are at an all-time high, garbage and litter find their ways into the ocean, where a single plastic bag can be enough to kill a decades-old whale, while little or nothing is done by OTHER nations to prevent this massive misuse of one of our most vulnerable natural resources.

Canada has more coastline than any other nation in the world. Yes, our actions therefore are GREATER than any other nation in the world -- and very, very necessarily so.

Drastic steps need to be taken, and while culling seals is the gutless, easy way out, at least it protects the fish-stocks for the short term.

Yes, the oceans need to be protected. Yes, this is a sad state of affairs. But until governments around the world get their shit together and enact laws and limitations on seafood to be fished for sale -- and IMPOSE punishments upon those who infringe laws -- the Canadian government and its people cannot be expected to sit on the sidelines while OUR fish stocks suffer the brunt of THEIR inactivity.

Lesser (yet more abhorrent) of two evils? Fucking right it is. Sad such decisions must be made, but there it is. You tell me something else we can do today that will have an impact literally tomorrow, and I, too, will be on that bandwagon. In the meantime, keep the self-righteousness and bandwagon jumping to a fucking minimum, because the lack of reality-check cashing's getting a little tedious right now, and I'm sick of my nation getting slagged for the rest of the world's failure to act within their borders, and the lack of enforcement in international waters.

(*I've scanned probably 30 sites trying to find a document that speculates as to quantities of catches by seals on a daily basis, particularly the harp seal, the species to be culled. Nothing. Fucking nada! So, how is one to have an informed decision on this matter, eh?)