I understand your concern for seals, and animals in general, but you are taking easy shots at an easy target.

Yes, seals are shot and clubbed. What animal used for human consumption isn’t? If you are opposed to the use of animals for human benefit (your veganism probably speaks to that), then why target the seal hunt of all of the many wrongs done to animals?

First, seals live in their wild, natural habitat until they are killed, unaware of their impending death. Pigs, cows, chickens and other animals are forced to live in the confined pens of factory farms, leading short and miserable lives until they are killed and processed.

It seems to me that seals have it better than these other poor animals. So why is all of the energy, effort, and publicity put into banning the seal hunt, while these other “less worthy” animals are left to suffer?

Second, look at the scale of slaughter. Massive national and international corporations are responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of livestock animals every day. Seals are slaughtered by a comparative handful of fishermen during a short season each year. They are sold on a relatively small scale.

Your attention on the seal hunt, as an affront to democracy, is misplaced. It’s very easy to attack the seal hunt, because you are attacking the livlihood of “regular joes” and not massive corporations involved in factory farming. Factory farming corporations can afford to keep their methods and abuses under the table, which should be more of a concern to our democracy than the unabashed willingness of people to participate in their controversial hunt.

Democracy ensures the protection of minorities — there are very few people involved in the sealing industry in Canada. A lack of understanding on the part of the majority should not be capable of taking away their right to seal, for no particular reason.

Yes, the seals are animals and have lives, and yes, there is an argument to be made that animals should not be killed for human consumption.

But the question is, why aren’t you trying to shut down the beef, pork, and chicken producers of Canada while you’re at it? Is your energy not better placed on stopping the large scale animal cruelty that takes place in these farms?

Why the free range seals? Why not the abused and forgotten livestock?