Paul Watson winning

[Guest guest]

If you don't read the whole article, read the last two paragraphs - PRICELESS! http://www.northern pen.ca/index. cfm?sid=127855 & sc=366EDITORIALHunt on the defensiveEDITORIALNorthern PenCapt. Paul Watson does a good job of getting under a person's skin.He can be overly offensive, hurl insults at politicians, belittlehard-working people, show disrespect towards families dealing withthe loss of loved ones and mock marine law - all while brandishing adirty, cold and calculating grin.He's a child of the media age and knows what to say, where to say itand when to say it to extract the most benefit for his cause andthat of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.Capt. Watson is not a new face on the animal

rights scene, but as anactivist, he's been relatively low-key in recent years. This year,perhaps sensing that he was in a position to strike a lethal blowagainst the seal hunt, he and his co-horts have ramped up therhetoric.You don't have to go very far to get an opinion on the man and whathe stands for. From the open line shows to the coffee shops to thekitchen tables, the sentiment, at least in the majority of places inNewfoundland and Labrador, is the same - people are seething.Even Loyola Hearn, normally unflappable as Canada's Minister ofFisheries and Oceans, showed that his patience with Capt. Watson'sshenanigans had reaching a breaking point. He called the captain andhis colleagues "money-sucking manipulators. " Though the action ofseizing the protest ship the Farley Mowat may have played directlyinto Watson's hands, the Canadian government had little choice butdefend and protect the sealers who

were obstructed and harassedwhile pursuing seals.In fact, there was plenty of rhetoric, mistruths and blatant liestossed around last week in the latest skirmish of what's become anongoing seal war. Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, waded inthe trenches again with the statement that the seal hunt isunprofitable and that the industry is propped up by governmentsubsidies. She recently put distance between herself and Capt.Watson when she removed herself from the society's advisorycommittee. She said she couldn't support Watson's comments that hevalued seals more than he valued the lives of four Quebec sealerswho drowned off Cape Breton. However, there she was, jumping onWatson's bandwagon again and talking nonsense about how the hunt was"inherently inhumane, dangerous for workers and damaging to Canada'sinternational reputation." Ms. May undermined her already weakarguments when she foolishly proclaimed

that the government shouldbuy out sealing licences and create an eco-tourism industry to makeup for the sealers' lost income.While the antics of people like Capt. Paul Watson and Elizabeth Maymake for good theatre on national television, they're just a sideshow to the biggest threat confronting the seal hunt. A move bymembers of the European Union to ban the importation of sealproducts in their countries is like a sledgehammer that couldeffectively destroy the seal hunt. The resurgence in the industry inrecent years and the higher prices being paid for seal pelts wasfounded on the principle of supply and demand. Sealers benefitedfrom the demand by earning an income from sealing many of them oncethought was impossible.There's reason to be worried that all of that will come crashingdown. Natural Resources Minister Kathy Dunderdale paints a gloomypicture following her return from a tour of European

Unioncountries. She was part of a delegation trying to make a pitch toparliamentarians that a ban on seal products would levy adevastating blow against sealers and the fragile economies of smalltowns in Northern Newfoundland and Northern Canada. She wasn'toptimistic that their efforts were effective, lamenting that there'sa groundswell of opposition to the seal hunt throughout Europe.The message is simple: If EU countries won't permit the importationof seal products, there's no demand, and if there's no demand, theprices paid for pelts will plummet. We've already seen this yearthat many sealers opted not to take part in the hunt because priceshad been slashed.In the end, we may not have to stomach the rants of Capt. PaulWatson for too much longer, but he and those of his ilk will stillbe smiling and getting under our skin because they will know thatthey have won. http://pets.Fortheanimals7/join