Project Lore

I'm a huge proponent of ending animal cruelty. I'm not going to jump on a soapbox here, but PETA's causes are certainly noble. However, sometimes I wonder who is organizing their awareness campaigns. One of PETA's main projects right now is fighting the baby seal slaughter in Canada, as Vancouver will host the 2010 winter Olympics. Where else are there baby seals? Why, the Howling Fjord of course! Or are there? I've looked high and low. In fact, I'm pretty sure that is the point behind that annoying Kalu'ak daily quest. There are reef cows and reef bulls, but no reef babies! If I am wrong here, someone please correct me! PETA's Ryan Huling writes on their blog:

The fight against the Canadian seal slaughter has gone digital! That's right, gamers, get ready: This Saturday, World of Warcraft (WoW) players will have the opportunity to combat a team of four Horde seal killers. We need your help to stop them from bashing in the heads of any more seals! Thrall refused to ban the slaughter of seals, despite multiple requests from the Alliance to do so, because Orgrimmar stands to make a large profit from the fur. Activists from across the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor are banding together to put a stop to the atrocious seal slaughter. Anyone who slaughters baby seals for their fur must surely be in service to the evil Lich King. Here's what you need to know in order to battle:

• You must be in the WhisperWind realm in order to fight. Visit WorldofWarcraft.com if you need information about how to switch into this realm.
• Once in the WhisperWind realm, go to Northrend, where you will find a zone called Howling Fjord, where the baby seals live on glaciers and boats float in the fjords. This will be the battleground to stop the slaughter. (Note: You must be at least a Level 70 player in order to enter Howling Fjord.)
• The battle will take place on Saturday, April 11, at 1 p.m. EST.

Make sure to check out videos about the upcoming battle here, and use our Facebook event to get all your friends to join you in the fight. Be sure to check back for the battle coordinates. Think you can stop the seal killers?

PETA is pushing this on their blog, Facebook, and Youtube. They made a short series of videos that you can check out. There are some painfully obvious problems this whole thing. First off, THERE ARE NO BABY SEALS TO PROTECT HERE, not even virtual ones. The whole premise of the event is flawed. Secondly, they are blaming the Horde for this and claiming they are working for the Lich King, which simply is not true and a common misconception. The Horde is not evil. Nor do players have be level 70 to go to the Howling Fjord as PETA claims; most players go there as early as 68. Additionally, players have to be on Whisperwind. This is a high population PvE server. If this is supposed to be some big PvP fest to bring attention to an issue, shouldn't they be doing this on a PvP realm? Or maybe all realms so everyone can participate without transfering servers (which PETA suggested players do)? Couldn't the seal clubbers just unflag themselves? So in short, PETA wants a mass of level 70+ Alliance players on a PvE server to defend some nonexistent baby seals from... from who? Are there going to be any Horde clubbing these invisible baby seals? Or is it going to be a couple random PETA players? PETA should be highlighting things like D.E.H.T.A if they wants to be halfway serious about this.. They are even referenced to directly in that achievement! They could highlight people like Bedrock who are evil poachers and encourage RP players to avoid that quest line or something. Its still insane and fruitless, but at least its consistent and well thought out! I suggest watching the videos if you want a good laugh. The voice-overs are terrible on top of the stupid premise of the whole campaign.

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