Clubbing SEALS?

mr00jimbo

mr00jimbo

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Now, I have my CORE and am looking to go hunting sometime in the not-so-distant future, just last year didn't work out so well.
But I have also done a lot of research into shot placement, vitals, practicing aim, etc. because I believe a huge factor in the whole ordeal is to minimize or eliminate any pain or discomfort felt from an animal when it is being hunted.

This is why I roll my eyes when people act as if rifles with powerful scopes are somewhat of an overkill and that people should be "real men" and use rocks and clubs. :rolleyes:

Anyway, what is up with this seal clubbing? Is it a barbaric thing, or is it humane? I'm not going to be judgmental because I know very little about it so I am just curious here to see.
Unless it was a quick and painless death, or precautions were taken on the hunter's behalf to minimize the discomfort to said seal, it seems like it would be something I would count myself out of.

Thoughts and opinions?
Please no flames; I have already mentioned I am ignorant to its operations and am asking out of curiosity not scrutiny.
 
The people who say that dispatching an animal with an accurately placed bullet is overkill, over mushing them with a club are weirdo freak mutants who are too cheap to register on the cheapness scale.

Ignore them. They are numb nuts.
 
also good on you for taking the time to find the best 'kill zones' and shot placement. i've headed out with guys before that have asked where the best place to shoot a deer was!!!!! '
WTF?
stop the truck!!!
1. how much shooting at the range have you done?
2. how, when, or did you even sight your rifle in?

9 times out of 10 you'll be headding to the range instead of the bush!
 
Well, for what it's worth, I was reading the Agriculture Canada recommended codes of practice for pig farming (of all things...), and their recommendation for the most humane method of killing neonates (i.e. really young animals) was blunt trauma to the head. Apparently, the skull hasn't fully knit, so it's an easy, quick, and as far as we can tell, painless death.

Dunno how old the greycoats are, or what the state of their cranial development is, but it's at least not completely inconceivable that the same would be true for them...
 
Republic of Alberta said:
Killing isn't pretty, no matter how it's done.

If you are worried about "discomfort" as you put it, hunting may not be for you.
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I would certainly hope that any hunters here take steps to ensure the least amount of suffering possible. I'm okay with killing for hunting but I think it should be done as humanely as possible.
 
I would think that all ethical hunters, which account for a large percentage of hunters, intend to dispatch the animal as quickly and humanely as possible. No one wants to chase after wounded game. Bang-Flop is ideal, who else agrees?
 
mr00jimbo said:
Anyway, what is up with this seal clubbing? Is it a barbaric thing, or is it humane? I'm not going to be judgmental because I know very little about it so I am just curious here to see.
Unless it was a quick and painless death, or precautions were taken on the hunter's behalf to minimize the discomfort to said seal, it seems like it would be something I would count myself out of.
Click to expand...
My dad had some roots in Labrador as they had a mink operation there as well as a sawmill. We also had a mink ranch in S.Ont with about 6000 mink on the farm every summer. We killed about 4500 mink in the fall for fur sales to the HBC.

My father saw 1st hand the seal hunt in Labrador when the young pups were harvested. When I was a young lad, I asked him about the seal hunt and if it was a cruel way to kill the pups. His reply was the the seal pups had very soft skull and that one good solid hit with a club on the hear would crush the skull and kill it immediately w/o pain. Knowing my father, I knew this to be true.

The media has done a very good job of changing public opinion on this by using public ignorance as a means to sway opinion. Most people will never have the oportunity to ask someone with 1st hand experience as I did, so they are left to form their own uninformed opinions.


.
 
Curt said:
Maybe like bonking a bunny
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Really eh? Research will be conducted very soon;)

More seriously, I can understand how Ojimbo feels. I'm in the same boat, no hunting experience, but have researched and am taking the time to sight in and practice. I guess what it comes down to is how you've been exposed to sealing, like hunting. The majority of people have been taught that sealing is a bizarre and bloodthirsty sport practiced by sadistic bloodthirsty demons on cute fluffy innocent dewy eyed seal pups. When that's all you know, that's all you think.

I don't have a problem with harvesting seals, I would have more of a problem with making money getting in the way of it being done humanely or sustainably. It's for this same reason that I want to hunt and have been working with my family to get "humanely treated" beef. (there's more to it than looking for a label at safeway)
 
Seals have very thin and small skulls, hitting them with a hakapik crushes their skull/brain and results in instant death (assuming a clean hit I suppose). The vast vast majority of seals around here shot, but the law says they still must be clubbed twice on the skull to ensure they're dead.

Looks nasty on video though, so there's a lot more money to be made protesting it than actually doing it.

I'd reckon that a clubbed seal dies more quickly and painlessly than just about any other harvested animal.
 
I have killed a wounded deer on the highway with one shot to the head with a track pin out of a D8 cat. Its all I had. It died instantly. I've also dispatched pigs for butchering with a baseball bat. Same same.

No killing is nice but if you know what you are doing, focused massive trauma to the brain does it very well, I'm sure with seal pups as well.
 
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