~ Musings On...The Red Ice Of Spring posted 3/21/2008 8:49:25 PM | 10 kudos what's this?     report abuse

sciurusniger

"And necessary evils, when the necessity has passed away, are just evils."
(Matthew Scully)


Spring has sprung yet one would not readily guess this by looking out the window here tonight. But that doesn't make it any less real. For deep beneath the frozen earth being blanketed one more time by the steadily falling snow, the longer hours of daylight are stirring the souls of all things green, awakening them from their long, deep sleep. Soon their reach will exceed their grasp and the tiny shoots will peek out, blinking sleepily. Then as the daylight hours continue to grow, so too will they and the blossoming will begin in earnest.

It is the magic we await with such weary eagerness each year. As humans have waited since the beginning of our history. The Easter celebrations this weekend are symbolic, the tales of death and resurrection live in the world around us. In an unusual turn of cycles and calendars, Easter falls only three days after the Vernal Equinox, bringing twice the reason for a lightening of hearts.

Yet in what is to me a horrible and ironic twist of fate, it has been decreed that only a few days later 275,000 babies are to die. Before the chocolate eggs are gone, as pastel colors begin to dominate the Earth and our wardrobes, the ice and waters in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off the coast of Newfoundland will turn red with the blood of baby seals.

It is a nightmare, this slaughter. It is not sport. It is not sustenance. At best it is commercial pandering to the vanity of a limited few by a limited few, subsidized by an entire country in which some 75% oppose it.

I read the numbers and can only shake my head in disbelief. And that is only the financial aspects. The moral and ethical aspects are utterly heartbreaking.

Of these 275,000 babies, most having not yet even taken their first swim or eaten their first real meal, approximately 42% - some 115,500 - will be skinned not only while still alive, but while still conscious, some after having been hooked and dragged across ice flows and onto fishing boats. The vast majority of their skinless bodies will be left to rot on the ice.

Few things I've ever experienced have caused me more pain than that this heinous behavior continues year after year, despite all science and despite all ethics to the contrary. There are no words for the sheer magnitude of pain, the sheer disgust at the sickening waste, the sheer helplessness in the face of what is, to me, one of the rare and true manifestations of evil in this world.

I look into the big, soft brown eyes of the furballs here and see the uncanny resemblance to those helpless innocents, already struggling to survive but with no hope at all once the so-called hunters arrive.

And I cry.

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Blogs by sciurusniger: ~ Gee...Ya Think? ~ Cow's Milk Kids (A Tiny Tale) ~ George Staples (A Tiny Tale) ~ Accursed Verse ~ Three Hopes Dashed (A Tiny Tale) ~ Stevie the Wonder (A Tiny Tale) ~ Rione di Maternità Improviso (A Tiny Tale) ~ Musings On...Liars & Obsessive Behaviors ~ Musings On...Fears ~ Three Day Night (A Tiny Tale) ~ Easter Pancake (A Tiny Tale) ~ Here Comes Peter...Flyer? (A Tiny Tale) ~ Musings On...The Red Ice Of Spring ~ Musings On...Clarity ~ Musings On...Writing ~ Bites & Dashes (A Tiny Tale) ~ Musings On...Reggie's Passing (A Tiny Tale) ~ Storms & Clouds (A Tiny Tale) ~ Over And...Oops! (A Tiny Tale) ~ Musings On...Blindness ~ Night Moves (A Tiny Tale) ~ Happy Feet (A Tiny Tale) ~ Out & About and In Again ~ A Heart's Musings ~ A Tiny Surprise (A Tiny Tale)