"Peter Wiley" wrote in message
. ..

Flip side is, my opinions are based on first hand observations over
quite a long period of time. What are yours based on? Ever worked in a
piggery? How about a battery chicken farm? Cattle feedlot holding
50,000 head? What do you know about the drug regimes necessary to
suppress diseases and the number of animals with subacute infections,
or the witholding periods? Acceptable death rates from being fed
rations that are designed to make the steers fat to meet a particular
market niche?

Only what I've read, which isn't much on the subjects you've raised. But
that has very little to do with anything in this discussion. You seem to
imply that animals cultured for food suffer mental turmoil at various points
along the process of raising them for slaughter. While I'm not fond of many
of the practices utilized in the meat and egg industries these days, I'm
certainly not worried about the psyche of a chicken crowded into a cage
along with five or six others, or a steer being roughly shoved toward the
kill station of a slaughterhouse.


Steers are not
sentient,

Harp seals aren't sentient either. What's your point?

No animals beyond humans are sentient. My point is that you've made a
comparison between the treatment a steer receives in a slaughterhouse and
that of a harp seal pup dying slowing from being clubbed and skinned. One
is a quick and relatively painless way to die; the other is an
excruciatingly painful, lingering death. I'm not concerned with the
psychological impact upon the animal of either.

therefore don't really give a rat's posterior as to what
conditions they live in, nor for the congestion or crowding.

I'm sure that's a comforting belief for you, Max, but I firmly
disagree, and I've *worked* on feedlots. Steers most certainly do
suffer health problems from being crowded into small pens, having to
jostle to feed out of troughs instead of graze, having to play
dominance games to get adequate shade/shelter, etc etc. You'll never be
able to prove whether they care or not as the beasts can't talk, but
it's most certainly possible to prove the ill effects on health from
the intensive rearing practises.

Animals don't have to "talk" to express distress and fear. With your
background that should be all too apparent to you. And I fully agree that
an animal will suffer physically if ill or abused. I'm no fan of feed lots.
But no one clubs them and skins them alive at the end, do they?

And what about intensive rearing of pigs? If you're going to tell me
that pigs don't know about and suffer under the conditions we subject
them to, I'm going to laugh in your face. Pigs are smart & playful if
allowed to be.

Are you actually attempting to justify the horrific harp seal slaughter by
telling me how swine suffer in pig farms?

But animals
can suffer pain and a lingering death. There are huge differences
between
the way livestock is raised and slaughtered and the harp seal harvest.


As I said in the first place, there's a lot smaller difference than you
want to think, when it comes to comparing factory livestock rearing. I
understand why you want to hold onto your beliefs, but you're
convincing nobody, least of all me.

Then you and I will have to agree to disagree. But you still have failed to
justify the methods used in harvesting harp seal pups for their fur.


I'm done with this. Get back to me after you've worked in a feedlot,
intensive piggery or similar and then we'll see if your opinion is
still the same. As for the seal harvest, I already said that anyone who
doesn't make sure the animal is dead before skinning it is a barbarian
and a criminal IMO.

On that we agree. But it is still done annually. I've seen three
disgustingly detailed films of harp seal harvests. The last one was after
the Finns claimed to have altered their methods of clubbing and skinning to
comply with new, humane methodology. And the pups still bayed pitifully for
almost an hour after being skinned. I was grateful for Greenpeace's action
as a watchdog on this issue, because assurances of compliance by the hunters
were bogus. Whether anything has been accomplished in enforcing compliance
is anyone's guess, but my guess is that it has not.

Max