Dear Alison,
I think you might be right. In the case of seals eating fish in on the
northwest coast of the US, every politician is looking for something or
someone to blame for lost fisheries and habitat. In refusal to recognize that
the problem is development, logging, and senseless, useless dams-- they say
it must be that the seals eating more than their fare share... the answer:
kill them.
Studies have indicated that salmon runs have a chance of returning if three
dams are removed on the Snake river here, they serve no purpose other than to
barge wheat and other commodities to sea. Farmers cry foul, bargers cry foul
and our stupid congress has the ear of those who say it must be the seals,
sure that will make a difference in the long run, right? Kill the seals so
that industry will prevail. I wager that these fisheries will be defunct
within 15 years regardless of how many seals are slaughtered.
/donna
Alison Hope Alkon wrote:
> The message I received claimed that the Indian forces are no match for the
> gangs set on poaching tigers in India. It also claimed that the reason
> for the poaching was traditional Chinese medicine which requires tiger
> bones in order to deal with sexual problems. I don't really know anything
> about this, but it seems to me that this would not produce the kind of
> demand that would inspire gangs to defy Indian troops. I wonder what kind
> of role the world economy, specifically capitolist demands for the skins,
> bones, whatever, plays in this relationship. Transnational capitolists
> have a habit of blaming traditional rituals for the negative effects which
> they perpetuate on a much larger scale (eg. primitive agriculture vs the
> timber industry especially in SE Asia and South America). Could this be
> the case here?
