Word: swilers
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...hands of their natural enemy-man. Their white coats have long been prized for boot and glove trimmings and for fur jackets. In the gulf, a horde of hunters invade the floes on foot, by boat, on ski-equipped planes and in recent years by helicopter. Hundreds of sealers-"swilers" in the Newfoundland dialect-conduct a brief but grimly efficient slaughter. With stout oak clubs they move systematically through the herd, beating the whitecoats to death with raps on the skull. Only if a hulking 300-lb. cow seal chooses to fight for her baby will a swiler sometimes spare...
Outrageously Inappropriate. A veteran swiler can complete a kill in less than a minute. The hunter, his face smeared with seal blood to cut down ice glare and prevent chapping, grabs a 60-lb. pup by a hind flipper, whacks it on its soft skull, spins the pup over, punctures the throat and then neatly skins away pelt, flippers and blubber with swift strokes of a razor-sharp knife. The process commences at dawn, continues until dark and turns the once pristine ice into an ugly palette of dirtied snow, crimson blood sprays and grotesquely skinned carcasses. Watching this month...
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