[Julian Shaw (Man Myth or Monkey?)]

you'll probably find that most animal rights activists will care about all 
animals it's just that saving nice cute seals is an easier campaign to get 
people from the general public involved in. I think they might try and focus 
on this campaign (rightly or wrongly) because of the relative ease of the 
victory, compared to the (non-existent) rights of frogs campaign.

>===== Original Message From "Beth Curran" <bcurran at columbus.rr.com> =====
>Mike Blackwood wrote:
>as such we respond to the
>> "cuteness" of seals because their faces remind us of common pets.
>
>True story:  the large contract research corporation where I used to work
>used the developing embryos of african clawed frogs (a fully aquatic frog)
>for toxicity research instead of mice, because the animal rights activists
>didn't give a * about amphibians.  Now, I personally thought the frogs were
>way cuter than mice, but apparently the "mammalists" don't.