Clobbered Again

THE photogenic appeal of baby seals plagues both those who kill them and those who sanction the slaughter. Last year in the wake of a worldwide outcry over the inhumane clubbing of the cuddly, snow-white pups that takes place every March off Canada's east c o a s t , t h e C a n a d i a n g o v e r n m e n t t h o u g h t i t h a d f i n a l l y f o u n d a solution that would muffle the inter national protests. Henceforth, the Ministry of Fisheries ruled, seal hunters on the ice floes of the Gulf of St. Law rence would kill and skin only "beat ers" -- month-old pups whose fur had turned a less-appealing brown and whose eyes no longer reflected the same degree of trust and innocence. And because the beaters could swim, went the reasoning, the St. Lawrence hunters would have to use guns, not clubs, to take their limit of 50,000 pups. "Those who protested the kill ings," said a bored Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, "won't be shown the same pictures of baby seals with their big blue or brown eyes."

As the 1970 hunt came to an end last week, however, the pictures showed the same old gory sights of white-coated pups being battered to death on blood-spattered ice. Why were the seals -- and Canada -- getting clobbered again? As it turned out, Ottawa had simply delayed the hunt, hoping that the week-old white pups would have matured to ordinary, uninteresting brown mammals by the time it began. Unexpectedly, however, mother seals whelped several weeks late this year, and many of their pups were at their familiar photogenic peak when the hunt began. The result was another field day for Canada's animal-rights activists, whose sense of publicity is every bit as keen as their sense of humanity. Perhaps Ottawa should find a surer way of neutralizing what Trudeau has called the "emotional distaste" of the hunt -- like ending it altogether.

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