All the various cites just above are great …
but to directly answer your Q …
Men fatally clubbing utterly cute baby seals on their soft heads with a big stick left their beautiful white pelts unsullied by blood or bullet / knife holes. So was the standard harvesting technique in Canada which supplied a then large seal fur coat industry.
In the 1970s this wanton behavior became a poster child for heedless human eco-vandalism against helpless Nature.
Which in turn spawned cynical counter memes (decades before the word “meme” was coined) that “clubbing baby seals” was a codeword for mindless cruelty and heedless greed.
Oddly enough, I was literally just thinking a few days ago* about how we about hear about that anymore. I swear, in the 90’s, worrying about people clubbing seals was right up there with being concerned about quicksand and getting lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
*i was watching one of the million compilation videos that had a clip of Sean Lock talking about it:
I don’t think so. When I was a kid in the mid seventies, that practice was a hot button subject, an outrage and often in the news, at least here in Germany. I remember much footage of baby seals getting clubbed multiple times, sometimes by more than one man at once until they died. But maybe my still outraged mind constructs false memories.
[hijack] I once teased a friend “You know how many baby seals had to die for that coat?” She came back with “You know how many baby Hawaiians had to die for your shirt?”[/hijack]
This is the only baby seal thing I knew about, that beautiful monologue in Goodwill Hunting where Will interviews for the NSA:
So what did I think? I’m holdin’ out for somethin’ better. I figure fuck it, while I’m at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.
Pitting the people who post videos on social media of wild animals (deer, opossums, mountain lions, wildcats etc.) in dire predicaments (some of which one suspects that the videographer has deliberated placed them in), showing themselves rescuing the poor beasts, which are then overcome with gratitude and either follow them home or show up at their doorsteps, after which they are adopted into the family, get belly rubs and treats, and live happily ever after.
The reality of shortened animal lives, bitten and scratched family members and semi-tame animals later approaching hunters and being shot down is never portrayed.
The people who film and repost/retweet this stuff are asses. If you actually do a good deed for a wild animal in distress, leave it alone afterwards or in the care of a professional wildlife rehabilitator. These animals are not pets.
and either follow them home or show up at their doorsteps, after which they are adopted into the family, get belly rubs and treats, and live happily ever after.