Animal rights,
northern blights

While I should know better than to get in the middle of the animal-rights debate, having had various vegan vs. meat-eater arguments that went absolutely nowhere, I found it offensive that Catherine Bégin's strategy for refuting JH Fillion's [pro-fur trapping] arguments was to call native Canadians drunks ["Further fur fury," Jan. 6].

Ms. Bégin says that there is no excuse for torturing living creatures, but neither is there any excuse for casual, uninformed racism. I find it both darkly funny and alarming that she clearly has more compassion for animals than for aboriginal people, and I am offended by the depth of her arrogance when she presumes to scold native people from her apartment in Montreal and haughtily instruct them to protect the northern environment since, apparently, she resents the money that they receive from the Quebec government. What does she think produces the huge amounts of money that Hydro-Québec pumps into the provincial economy? Careful stewardship of the North? Massive flooding and destruction of huge tracts of land in the North doesn't seem to bother her, while the spectre of Indians with money clearly does.

While I too find the idea of killing animals purely for fashion distasteful, and agree that Mr. Fillion is clearly motivated by personal financial gain, I find Ms. Bégin's thinly veiled prejudices even more distasteful. There are a number of cogent arguments against fur that do not require descending into this kind of bigoted sophism. I suggest she stick to those.

» Andrew P. Reimer, Cincinnati, Ohio

Nature no nurturer

This letter is in response to A. Kraemer's somewhat hysterical letter criticizing JH Fillion's earlier letter about fur trapping ["Further fur fury," Jan. 6]. I'm not an advocate of the fur trade (I really don't know enough about it to be for or against it), but I believe Mr. Fillion had a valid point about the timely harvest of certain species. Like it or not, we have irrevocably changed the habitats of these creatures, and without our constant intervention, overpopulation and disease will be the consequence.

When the seal harvest stalled in the '80s and '90s, the seal population exploded and death by disease was rampant. The same was true with the deer population in areas where wolves were eradicated. The answer to this ecological damage was properly controlled hunting. There is no other choice if we choose not to move out of these areas and let nature set up a new balance.

Ms. Kraemer asked us to give her one example of any other animal that kills or tortures for any reason other than food. Fine, I'll give her two: Members of the weasel family (such as wolverines and fishers) are notorious for their love of killing for the sheer pleasure of it. And the feline family "plays" with its food before eating it, taunting and chasing their prey. It's extremely cruel, but that's their nature. Cats also prolong their prey's suffering in order to teach their young how to hunt and kill.

I'm against cruelty to animals, but the natural world is not a happy, fuzzy place where all creatures get along, and the sooner we abandon this fanciful idea, the better. Then we can concentrate on making life better for the animals in our world. In my opinion, people who are on the extremes of the animal-rights issue make life worse for animals: those who care nothing for the suffering of animals are terrible, but the ones who are so intractable on the subject of "no meat, no fur, no animal testing" simply turn people off and make moderate debate difficult.

If you don't want to eat meat, that's fine, but don't yell at those of us who do. Perhaps your time would be better spent asking us to eat cruelty-free and free-range, while lobbying for the end of factory farming or for regulated hunting and humane trapping. Remember: everything dies, there's nothing we can do about that. What we can do is try to make life better for all living things.

» Mario Cerone

The DL on CDs from Ms. B

First of all, thank you to the Mirror for naming me a 2005 Noisemaker - much love ["Bigga tings fi 2005," Jan. 6]. I would just like to elaborate.

Our Thursdays at Blue Dog are not actually a residency, but a weekly event that I started in early 2003 with James Bond and have been pushing more recently with Jinx and Soul, who joined us over a year ago. About the Stevie Wonder version mentioned, that's in fact a dub I recorded for Jinx and Soul, so for that particular recording you can check out their mix CDs, available everywhere. As for my solo shit, watch for me, 2005, it's all about Ms. B mix CDs, platinum hits and much, much more.

Peace.

» Ms. B

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