Brussels, 27/03/2007 (Agence Europe) - A delegation from Canada, which is extremely concerned by the desire expressed by the European Parliament to obtain from the Commission a total ban on the sales of products derived from seals within the EU (EUROPE 9389), visited Brussels on 26 March, to allow the competent ministers, the hunters, the Inuit and representatives of the seal product industry to have their say. The objective was to alert the European institutions to the dramatic consequences of such an initiative on the income and way of life of the Inuit and other communities which are dependent on seal hunting. Aside from defending the vital interests of a population of hunters from North and East Canada, the delegation has spoken out vigorously against the “misinformation” of those who speak of the “supposedly inhumane” slaughter methods to support the call for a general ban. The delegation put across this point of view during its discussions with Struan Stevenson (EPP-ED, United Kingdom) at the European Parliament, Stavros Dimas, the European Commissioner for the Environment, and Joe Borg, his colleagues for Fisheries.
Speaking before the press at the Canadian representation to the EU, Loyola Sullivan, the Canadian ambassador for fisheries conservation issues, pointed out that seal hunting is an “ancestral tradition which goes back more than 3000 years, which is part of the cultural heritage of the communities, the backbone of the economy, and the means for people to subsist”. The ambassador denied that seals are dismembered alive (the movements of the seals, which have been taken as proof of a state of awareness of the animals, are nothing but the seals' swim reflex, similar to the way chickens run about with their heads cut off, he explained). He went on to state that slaughter methods are “just as humane, if not more so, than methods used in laboratories”. 90% of seals are killed by a shot from a gun and 10% by harpoon. He complained that animal defence associations were spreading “erroneous information, going back 25 years, whereas much has changed in practice since 1982”. The ambassador pointed out that the hunting of white-furred baby harp seals has been banned in Canada since 1987, and that poachers are liable to heavy fines. “Slaughter methods have been assessed by many experts, who have concluded that they are sustainable, humane and based on the strictest management practices. All the rest is emotional lyricism”. In order to re-establish the truth, Canada is “entirely prepared to cooperate in an objective scientific investigation of the humaneness of hunting methods”, in which EFSA (the European Food Safety Authority) will take part, as Commissioner Dimas proposed. European observers will be invited to attend the Newfoundland Hunt, which is due to open in a fortnight's time, Ambassador Sullivan announced.
If seal-derivative products existed in very limited quantities in the 1970s, there are a great many of them today (clothing, oils, nutritional supplements, etc); however, the population of North Atlantic harp seals has grown from 2.7 million in 1971 to between 5.5 million and 6 million today, sufficient proof that hunting techniques are sufficiently sustainable, stressed Trevor Taylor, Minister for Trade and Rural Development for Newfoundland and Labrador. Mary Simon, President of the International Inuit Council, said that a European ban exempting the Inuit would still have a direct impact on them, because the market for seal products would be destroyed. Jean-Claude Lapierre, a hunter from the Magdalen Islands, spoke of the suffering for “people who are dependent on the ocean for their living” to have been “treated like murderers for 40 years”. He blasted the emotional approach which refers to “marine mammals” and “baby seals” in order to touch people's sensitivities. Do we talk about baby chickens or baby pigs, he asked. (an)