This article - at least the last few paragraphs - understates what we&#x27;re getting out of cows. Yes, the hides are important, but we also eat their flesh and use their bones for stuff. Cows are not typically skinned and then left in the field to be picked over. Also cow leather has a larger range of uses than I imagine seal skin&#x2F;fur does: the latter is strictly a luxury item and I think that would be true even if there was unlimited sealing. In short, comparing seal hunting and cattle farming is maybe not as helpful as the article&#x27;s author would like.<p>I do think the outcry over sealing is because they are cute. As the article points out, they are not endangered. This also affects the comparison with whaling. The whales everyone was most concerned about in the 80s definitely were (are?) endangered, and with whale birth rates being much lower than seals (and cattle, and poultry), killing an individual whale would have a larger overall impact on the species.