Here at News of the North, we traditionally post a disparaging look at the seal hunt around this time every year. This brings us plenty of responses, both positive and negative, both thoughtfully considered and completely mindless:

Seal Pops they taste like Seal
Seal Pops they are made with Seal
Seal Pops they’re a real big deal
Seal Pops

Kenny the Shark

But one of the criticisms that’s frequently made about the anti-sealing protesters goes something like this: “It’s only because baby seals are so cute and cuddly, otherwise they wouldn’t care".

We’d hate to be hypocrites. So this year, we’re letting the seals fend for themselves, and we’ll tell you about some of the other, not-so-cute animals that are being hunted unnecessarily.

• Walruses aren’t cute. Non-Inuit sports hunters will pay up to $7,000 US for a chance to kill a walrus, which one travel writer from the New York Times called “a long boat ride to shoot a very large beanbag chair.". In 2006 the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife noted the the walrus’s status was raised to “special concern".
• Rattlesnakes aren’t cute. Rattlesnake roundups are common in New Mexico, Texas, and other states, despite the negligible effect that rattlesnake bites have on livestock and the environmental damage caused by the toxic chemicals and gasoline used to kill or collect the snakes.
• Sharks aren’t cute (not even you, Kenny). When sharks are caught and stripped of their fins (to be used in soups and medicines), they are often thrown back, alive, into the ocean, where they can no longer swim and are eaten to death by other fish. Despite its reputation as a miraculously healthy meal, shark fin soup actually contains dangerously high levels of mercury.

You can also learn more about the uglier faces of extinction, through environmental change as well as hunting, over at Endangered Ugly Things.

The North and South Poles will be represented in Baltimore this week, at the Arctic-Antartic summit. The earth’s poles are seen as the “canary in the coal mine” for climate change, giving us warnings and showing change before the rest of the planet. Some of the items to be considered include territorial claims and limiting tourism. The conference will be hosted by Hillary Clinton.

In the meantime, at the G20 summit in London, protesters set up a “climate camp” to protest carbon trading, which they see as an ineffective method of controlling climate change, as it does not effectively reduce greenhouse gases.

“The current economic model is based on infinite growth on an infinite planet, and to anyone with common sense that does not work.”

While the topic of climate change did arise at the G20 summit, the economic crisis was the real issue to be dealt with, and no action was taken on this growing environmental crisis. It is not until December that the UN Climate Change Conference will take place in Copenhagen.

In the meantime, the ice is melting faster.

Catch us on April 17 at the Railway (579 Dunsmuir) with Parlour Steps and Seven Levels (touring from Saskatoon!).

Doors at 9, show at 10.

See you there!