For & Against: The Humane Treatment Of Polar Bears

FOR:
Fuck people.

I mean really. Is it not bad enough that we are at this point most definitely causing the polar ice to shrink, depleting the fragile climate of these majestic creatures? Do we seriously need to be shooting them on sight, too?

It’s like, if I set your house on fire, and then waited outside with a rifle to snipe you as you ran screaming from your burning home, you would rightly say I am a monster. But for some reason, doing effectively the same thing to a species already on the verge of being endangered is No Big Deal and the Sensible Choice.

Maybe shooting them with tranquilizer darts, bundling them up and airlifting them to Greenland or elsewhere seems like a great expenditure. To my mind, it’s the very least we can do, considering we’re playing a direct part in causing them to be desperate enough to swim to Iceland in the first place.

AGAINST:
Fuck polar bears.

I mean really. Everyone has their gender-neutral underwear in a twist over the fact that we shot a polar bear, rather than capturing it. We shoot them because they’re hungry carnivores and they eat people. But we should rather capture them? And do what? Put them in zoos? Don’t we hate zoos? Aren’t zoos inhumane now?

OK, not zoos, so what then? Let’s fly them back to Greenland. Once they’re there, we’d have to helicopter them a few hours away from the natives there, so they don’t eat them. Then they get hungry, as they are these days, and get back on an iceberg and float over here again. And so it goes. Or we could shoot them. Get it over with.

Ideally the next polar bear is captured next to a poultry farm. One where the cages are extra small to get your chicken breasts under that sweet point of 990 ISK per pack. Where the millions spent on extending the misery of a starving polar bear would be put to better use creating humane conditions for hundreds of creatures. But no. Because misery is not counted in hours and lives, but cuteness and fluffyness.