The Seal Clubbing Business & Animal Activist Groups

The other day I started a thread about diamonds pretty much being a bullshite industry and I mentioned it was something that is in a book I am reading 'Everything Is bullshite'.

There is a chapter on the seal clubbing industry. In summary, seal clubbing is done mainly in Newfoundland, Canada and was a huge part of its economy. But then all of a sudden animal activist groups, mainly PETA started spending millions of dollars to campaign against seal clubbing, which seriously hurt the demand for fur coats and other products made from seals.

The people who wrote the book wanted to know why PETA focused so much on seals and not try to help with animals that are endangered.

One day on Ellen Degeneres' show, she ended it with supporting the campaign against seal clubbing. A girl from Newfoundland, Canada contacted her and asked her to please educated herself on the subject before she decides to support it because where she lived was suffering pretty much all because PETA decided to campaign against it.

Then it was realized that PETA isn't really an equal animal activist group. When they do campaigns for certain animals it is always animals that are considered "cute" (they even go into detail what features are needed to be considered cute).

People are a lot more likely to be drawn to animals that are cute (obviously) which means more donations.

This might be common knowledge already, but I guess I never really thought about it. But the next time you see some celebrity on TV trying to save a certain type of animal, more than likely it is going to be for some cute animal..And they have not educated themselves before deciding to support a cause.