Source: exZOOberance
We are joined by three animal advocacy groups to discuss anti-sealing activism. We want to explore why some groups focus on the hunt, and ask critical questions about rhetoric, strategy, and tactics. Centrally, we hope to promote a dialogue amongst activists: we’ll be featuring two Toronto groups (ARK II and Wild at Heart) in conversation with the Atlantic Canadian Anti-Sealing Coalition, to swap ideas and to reflect together. Throughout the program, we’ll investigate the logistics of the hunt, but also examine how these issues are framed by groups, the media, workers, the government, etc.
For example, the animal movements have often been seen as anti-labour; indeed, some AR activists have clearly vilified workers through a variety of means, including descriptions of sealers as uncivilized, “barbaric,” and “savage.” Similarly, protesters are often positioned as urban-centric, ruthlessly preying upon the sympathies of other ignorant urbanites, as they supposedly remain woefully detached from both the economic and cultural realities of Atlantic Canada. Further, while the debate is often framed as the seal industry and government on one side, and protesters on the other, the interests and perspectives of the seals are sometimes forgotten or even intentionally ignored. But what are seals’ lives actually like, and how do they experience the hunt? How are they represented in the seal hunt debates?
Please join us for this Animal Voices, as we turn a critical eye on the hunt and the protests that surround it.
Listen right now:
Animal Voices 