YES!!! The Canadian Seal Hunt is dead!

[flvegan]

EU takes aim at Canada, bans seal products

By CONSTANT BRAND – 3 hours ago

STRASBOURG, France (AP) — The European Parliament voted to ban imports of seal products Tuesday, including fur coats and even omega-3 pills, trying to force Canada to end the annual seal hunt that animal rights groups call barbaric.

The EU assembly overwhelmingly endorsed a bill that said commercial seal hunting, notably in Canada, is "inherently inhumane." The bill still needs the backing of EU governments, but officials called that a formality since national envoys had already endorsed the bill.

Canada's East Coast seal hunt is the largest of its kind in the world, killing an average of 300,000 harp seals annually. Canada exported around $5.5 million U.S. dollars worth of seal products such as pelts, meat, and oils to the EU in 2006.

The lawmakers faced heavy lobbying from both animal rights groups and authorities from Canada and Greenland. Curbing the hunt of seals in Canada has been the focus of the bill because of the size of its annual cull and the way seals are killed.

The bill is expected to become law in a matter of weeks.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gmyGqfWSNhmBma6m8RguatiPzfMQD9803N982

[Ignis]

1. Great news!

Sometimes, the Market works. ;)

[mtf80123]

2. All that death..... the slaughter of the innocent and pure...

I pray that all living beings... past, present and future may attain Buddhahood.

[ThomCat]

3. Does this truly end the seal hunt or just scale back the market?

I suppose we can't know the answer yet this year, but it will be interesting to see where this goes.

Even if this only drives the market underground that is still a major victory. Take away the vast majority of the market and profits and the seal hunt has to get scaled back dramatically.

Hopefully there isn't enough remaining market anywhere, or black market, to sustain even a reduced hunt. If there is no market and therefore no profit then we'll really see that the hunt is truly dead. :)

[flvegan]

4. By doing one, it does the other.

For example, because of the pending EU ban, this year far fewer sealers hit the ice. The lack of interest and decimated pelt pricing meant that of the 280,000 seals that could be taken under the quota, "only" 60,000 were. A full 30% of the entirety of seal products exported by Canada go to the EU.

With the pelt price hovering around $15/each (down from $100 and change a few years ago), and a 30% hit to the market, it's just not going to be worth it.