Ice Traps About 100 (mostly seal hunters) Vessels :-)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.vocm.com/news-info.asp?id=20023

Ice Traps About 100 Vessels
April 19, 2007

Some 20 crew members have been taken off four vessels trapped in the ice fields off Newfoundland and Labrador. And more evacuations are likely. A dozen of the men are being transferred to land but eight will be kept onboard the Ann Harvey to help assess the situation with the four vessels.

Emergency provisions are being flown in by helicopter to those boats in need. In all, about 100 vessels, most of them sealing ships, are trapped in the heavy ice, which stretches from Grey Islands to Cape Freels. Close to a dozen of them may have incurred extensive damage.



The ice is so heavy that even Coast Guard ice breakers are becoming stuck and spokesman Brian Penney says it will be at least the weekend before things improve. He says fuel is not a problem for the vessels, but food is.

snip A crewmember of one of more than a hundred sealing vessels stuck in the ice off northeastern Newfoundland is blaming DFO for their predicament. Rodney, a crewmember of the Cape John Navigator out of Lascie, says in five days his crew has only had 17 hours sealing. He told VOCM Night Line with Linda Swain, DFO made a series of decisions that didn't take the safety of sealers into account. They delayed the hunt, then shut the hunt down to do a count leaving vessels out on the water waiting to hear whether they could continue sealing by that time the ice moved in, and they were stuck.

MP Gerry Byrne wants Ottawa to extend the EI program for sealers who cannot take part in the fishery due to ice conditions. Byrne says a number of boats were stuck in port by the extraordinarily heavy ice conditions off the northeast coast and southern Labrador. He told VOCM Backtalk with Bill Rowe it's time for the federal government to extend EI benefits as they did for cod and lobster fishermen in 2003.


FULL story at link.

[jilln]

1. Why not beat them to death with sticks, or shoot them?

You know, for their own good?

[Kool Kitty]

10. Or they could be skinned alive.

[TomInTib]

2. Let them eat one another.

Two birds, one stone.

[MasonJar]

3. Oh, poor vessels. I hope this happened before they killed the baby

seals. Does anyone know?

[tularetom]

4. Boo fuckin hoo

Be poetic justice if they starved to death out there and some seals came and ate their sorry asses, wouldn't it.

[sasha031]

5. Karma is a good thing

I hope this happened before they got at the un legged seal pups.

maybe there is some kind of poetic justice...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. When I heard this on the news,

I envisioned a great Seal Spirit blowing cold air on the waters, turning them to ice.....

[Dogmudgeon]

7. Death to them all! Off with their heads!

These are human beings you're wishing death on, not animals -- which seem to get more respect around here anyway, at least the cute ones.

Pretend these men have families. Wait -- most of them they DO have families. Some of them, I'm sure, have adorable little blonde daughters who would cry if Daddy were to die while trying to earn a living, even if a bunch of "information workers" parked on their warm, well-fed butts crack wise about how they deserved it.

Let's look at that final paragraph again, with the pertinent section given special (formatting) attention:

MP Gerry Byrne wants Ottawa to extend the EI program for sealers who cannot take part in the fishery due to ice conditions. Byrne says a number of boats were stuck in port by the extraordinarily heavy ice conditions off the northeast coast and southern Labrador. He told VOCM Backtalk with Bill Rowe it's time for the federal government to extend EI benefits as they did for cod and lobster fishermen in 2003.

It seems that Ottawa has made few or no financial provisions for the seal hunters' existence, let alone a change of career, eh?

I'm not crazy about the commonwealth of Virginia, either, but I didn't cheer when Mr. Cho went on his rampage of death last week.

You want to save the cute baby seals? A worthy cause, that. So petition the Canadian Parliament to outlaw the seal hunt and to re-employ these men, perhaps in environmental protection work. As seasoned outdoorsmen and sailors, they could help save the cute polar bears threatened by the breakup of the northern ice sheet. And I'm sure they'd be happy to not be the butt of outrage from intellectuals, armchair environmentalists, bourgeois "activists", and the Internet.

Hooting for the mass death of seal hunters is Freeper-think. Please reconsider your wishes.

:wtf:

--p!

[depakid]

8. On the other hand, don't expect more than crocodile tears

These men chose to go up into arctic waters on inhumane missions of highly questionable merit in pursuit of profits.

http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx?oid=21446

With profits come risks- it ain't always such a cake walk, and now it seems that the risk has materialized. Don't expect me to feel sorry for them.

[Dogmudgeon]

9. I don't expect anyone to feel sorry for them

But the gloating is net-wide, and it stinks.

As for profits, which you invoke twice, most of these guys are not high-rollers. The "profits" sustain some of the families in poverty for the rest of the year -- rural fishermen and hunters are not at the top of the food chain. A few of the hunt organizers do kind-of well. There is far more money in running an environmental non-profit.

If anyone is looking for a villain to whom to vent their outrage, they ought to start in Ottawa -- and the NY/London/Paris fur markets.

--p!

[Kool Kitty]

11. We who are against the seal hunt have been venting our outrage to

those you listed, also, believe me.