Fisherman arrested for stabbing sea lion

United Press International-- Los Angeles Times ? ^ | July 28

[BykrBayb]

It looked like a compliment to me.

[wagglebee]

It was, saying that you were howlingly peachy would have been an insult.

[BykrBayb]

You’re so right!

; )

[8mmMauser]

You guys were having all the fun when I was snoozing. Hope it is not too late to pound my sign into the ground. We used to be around sea lions a whole lot when I was kids. They smell like cheese.

8mm

[wagglebee]

We used to be around sea lions a whole lot when I was kids. They smell like cheese.

Are we talking about cheese again?

[Finny]

This story is UTTER CRAP! Come visit me next winter here in the Seattle area and I’ll give you a knife and all the opportunity you can ever desire to try and stab a Sea Lion. Even if by some very lucky chance you could get close enough all the knife would do is piss them off or maybe make them back away. Have you ever seen UP CLOSE the rips the males do to each other when they are just playing. You should see the bigger males after they get back here from a summer at the rookeries. Numerous open wounds ...

I come back a day later, and on this whole thread, I think you and I were the only ones to catch that little detail: The whole story is CRAP!

Killed it with a steak knife. Yeah. Right.

Personally, one less sea lion is a good thing especially the breeders.

Amen. I've seen whole livelihoods and industrys killed by them. You're always reading about how man is decimating the fishing grounds, blah blah blah ... and check the numbers. They NEVER factor in the thousands of tons of fish per day that all thes ^%()$#&#!!@! destructive, nasty, aggressive sea lions and seals eat. I can't believe all the tourists posting who don't get the food chain thing and think they're cute. Talk about out of touch. Yipes. Scary.

[Finny]

So doing what only comes naturally to a wild animal is means for executing it ...

Ah, Pete, I hate to break it to you, but when we're competing for food sources, yeah. You can call it "execution" if you want, but it's pretty silly. Killing to make food is a reality in every form of prime food production, vegetables and crops included. Furthermore, there's nothing wrong with that.

Get used to it or doom humanity to starvation.

[Long Island Pete]

Another genius heard from. This guy was out for a leisurely day of fishing. He wasnt competing for anything. He has an anger issue and should get it in check. I guess I should warn my neighbors that sea lions will be invading our grocery stores so we had better stock up.

[Finny]

Sea lions ARE invading your grocery stores. You see them in the much, much higher prices of seafood and in its scarcity. You also see them in depressed economies in regions that were home to now-gone fisheries, of whole towns where the majority of the people, for generations, once made their livings harvesting or processing seafood. Exploding populations of "protected" sea lions, seals, and sea otters have depleted those fisheries. I know better than to believe the environmentalists because I was there and saw it happen.

I am dismayed and disappointed when fellow conservatives prove themselves gullible to environmental emotionalism, and don't see this sea lion "execution" for what it truly was.

I totally understand why this guy was pissed enough to kill the sea lion. I'd just rather he'd done it more discreetly and with a .45, and you should too. You obviously have no idea how destructive, economically and physically, sea lions are. If you did, you'd (a know that there's no way the guy killed one with a steak knife and b) that this would never have happened 20 or 30 years ago because back then, fishermen kept sea lion populations in check.

[Long Island Pete]

And Michael Vick is keeping the Pit Bull population in check also. To kill one of God’s creatures just for the sake of killing it is downright deplorable. I am disappointed that fellow Conservatives would think otherwise. Then again there are those that like to bash their skulls in and I wish the same would happen to them.

[Finny]

You live far from the realities of life, dear, and your perceptions reveal it.

[Finny]

Then again there are those that like to bash their skulls in and I wish the same would happen to them.

Also you reveal that you're projecting -- that the real viciousness and hatred lies in yourself. I know a lot of guys that will RIGHLY covertly kill a sea lion in an instant, and not a one of them is doing it out of anger, vengeance, or hate. They take no pleasure in killing "God's creatures" (which you are an accessory to killing with every bite of food you eat and wine you drink, did you know that?????) except to know that they're putting humans first, where they belong. They're doing MEN's jobs that emotional, city-slicker sissies don't have the stones to do.

You are so inexperienced with real life that you cannot even conceive such a truth. In other words, you HAVE fallen for the emotional, feminine-centric environmenalist view, rather than the human centered view. You think sea lions are more important than people. Go ahead, admit it. That's the first step to getting help.

[Long Island Pete]

You think sea lions are more important than people. Go ahead, admit it. That's the first step to getting help.

You couldnt be more wrong. I dont think that way and your way of thinking is ass backwards. Yes I am an accessory to killing when I enjoy a nice big juicy steak, but I have yet to come across a restaurant that sells seal burgers. To kill an animal for food is one thing. To kill it just to kill it is criminal. The only hatred I have in me is for those that do that. And they aint men at all. A man is measured by the way he treats the defenseless. Human or animal.

[Finny]

If you knew more about what it was like to live around sea lions and had to deal with the economical and physical destruction they wreak, you'd know that this guy probably didn't "kill it just to kill it." You'd also know that he sure as hell didn't kill it with a steak knife unless the animal was severly disabled already. Clearly there's quite a lot more to this story.

I find myself thinking about your eloquent statement that this animal was being "executed" just for doing what wild animals do. In the name of fairness and consistency, I present a real-life comparison. In the area near Hearst Castle/San Simeon where I was born, on a particularly scenic area of the California coast, there is one particular stretch of gorgeous beach and tidepools that for generations have been wonderful places for kids, including me and my brothers, to explore tidepools and play in the water. We were doing what kids do, not harming anything, not killing anything, just ... doing what kids do when they're around tidepools and beach.

In the years since I was a kid, emotional environmentalists spearheaded efforts to make sea lions and seals "protected" from meanies who, in their naive and malicious opinion, had been killing them out of mere spite and wickedness ... even though there was very obviously (to anyone who had eyes) no shortage of them and they did DIRECTLY take money out of the hands of working fisherman by stealing their fish off the hook. It wasn't long before seal and sea lion populations exploded to the point that now, they're not only seen swimming in waters and fishing grounds many miles from shore where they were never seen 20 years ago, they literally take over many recreational areas that kids once delighted in exploring.

So, a couple of years ago, kids being kids -- just doing what kids do when they're around tidepools and beach -- would approach the now dozens of sea lions that had taken over the tidepools and beach in that one spot. That's what kids do -- they were just kids being kids. Sea lions, in case you don't know, are vicious, strong, and aggressive and will tear you to pieces given half a chance. But these kids being kids and mostly innocent tourists who, like yourself, have very little understanding of the true nature of sea lions, would try to approach and pet them, and got chased away at great danger.

So what happened? The state deemed the sea lions too dangerous for people, and prompltly put up a big, ugly chain-link fence to keep people away from the beach and tidepools because the sea lions attempted to "execute" little kids who were just being little kids.

So tell me ... who's more important in that scenario? Sea lions or people? Talk about double-standards.