14 DAY TRIAL // At least the Canadian seal hunt practice is dwindling. With an alloted yearly quota of 273,000 individuals, the hunters only killed 70,000 of the animals, with their regular brutality. But the hunting of seals is beginning to become bad business. The Russian and Chinese markets, two of the main places where Canada sells seal products, are beginning to decline, and the European Union's ban on products obtained from seals killed brutally, as in Canada, is expected to come into full effect in October, the BBC News reports.
Despite attempts of persuading the European Parliament not to vote for the bill, Canadian officials have failed to do so. For decades now, environmentalist groups have been lobbying for more humane ways of killing the animals, but the Canadian hunters' savage nature is what eventually led to the ban, as the world watched in mute silence videos portraying the brutalities of seal hunters and the clubbing to death of baby seals.
The videos apparently struck a nerve somewhere, as, soon after more started coming out, officials in Europe began to make preparations for the ban. The document is not yet in full effect, as the ratification of member states is expected. However, that will be only a matter of formalities, market analysts say. As a result of these conditions, prices per pelt have plummeted from $100 a few years ago to less than $12, a price that does not cover basic hunting-related operations. In some fishing communities in Canada, fishermen didn't even bother to go hunting, as they knew it was pointless.
This is exactly the kind of pressure animal rights groups were waiting for, because trying to go to the root of the problem, and stop the killers themselves, would have not done any good. Now that their source of seasonal income is about to go away, many a fishermen complain that they will be unable to even pay their bills, let alone make a profit. However, as activists accurately point out, it's the fishermen who got themselves in this situation, by continuously disregarding protests from the international community.