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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Tough world for
baby seals and parrotsMan, I was about to unload on Canada for repealing a 20-year-old ban on the killing of baby harp seals because, well, it's so easy. Then I realized that while I was reading about all the white fur balls about to have their heads bashed in somewhere in the frozen reaches of Canada, someone was reading a news story about our plans to kill wild parrots on Maui.
I could just see Nanook of the North reading with shock and horror to his children about the barbarity of killing beautiful, green parrots the same way I was reading to my daughter about the horror clubbing of baby harp seals.
There's Nanook showing pictures of the parrots to the kids, saying, "Hunters don't eat the meat, or save the feathers, or make jewelry out of the beaks or send the little parrot penises to Asia as aphrodisiacs ... they just kill these beautiful creatures because they poop seeds that make weeds all over island." And I could envision the little Nanook kids asking, "What's a weed?"
I was telling my daughter that the seal hunters club or shoot baby seals so that they can sell the soft, white fur to idiots in Russia to make comfy gloves or coat collars out of, use the meat to make pepperoni sausage and ship the seal penises to people in Asian countries to use as aphrodisiacs. To which my daughter replied, "What's an aphrodisiac?" To which I replied, "Hey, how about those Lakers? Think they'll be able to clinch the championship without Kobe Bryant?"
LOOK, THIS seal/parrot-killing thing is not a tough call. God made certain animals cute so that people wouldn't club them to death when they're young. Seals fall into this category. So do kittens and puppies. Humans should not kill small animals simply to wear the essence of their cuteness around on their shoulders. They should wait for the animal to get older and make flank steak out of it.
The Canadian seal population has increased so much that it is eating (literally) into the cod population. Cod, being among a long line of non-cute but tasty of animals, is the backbone of Canada's fishing industry. Anything that threatens that industry must be clubbed to death, according to Canada's Humane Cute Animal Clubbing Statutes.
Newfoundland islanders defend seal killings as a matter of cultural heritage. The Newfoundland Tourism Bureau must be relieved that head-hunting isn't part of the islanders' cultural heritage. Imagine the brochures.
As far as the parrots go, they are not native to Hawaii and do scatter weed seeds, but there must be some better way to deal with the problem than to kill them.
I suggest hanging crackers from the trees with strings and playing tapes of "Pretty Girl" in the forests, and when the birds land, you catch them and put little diapers on their butts.
Sure, it's time-consuming but it's humane. And just think how hard it will be for Nanook to explain THAT to his kids.
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Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com
