By Barbara Slee and Abigail Caudron - 8th December 2008
“There is neither place nor demand on the European market for seal products coming from an inhumane and unsustainable slaughter”
Barbara Slee and Abigail Caudron of IFAW
On 23 July, the European commission adopted a proposal for a regulation to ban the placing on the market and the import in, transit through and the export of seal products from the EU.
The aim of the current proposal is “to provide harmonised rules to eliminate the present fragmentation of the internal market while taking into account animal welfare considerations”.
The proposed regulation foresees, first, an exemption for seal products resulting from hunts traditionally conducted by Inuit communities, and which contribute to their subsistence, and second, a derogation allowing the trade in seal products from hunts which hypothetically do not cause the animals unnecessary suffering.
The report is with the European parliament’s internal market committee, with Liberal MEP Diana Wallis as rapporteur. The environment committee was asked for an opinion, and the international trade and agriculture committees will be involved, likely through the enhanced cooperation procedure.
With upcoming parliamentary elections, there is need for quick decision-making; committee votes will take place in December and January and the plenary vote is scheduled for 1 April.
The draft opinion of the environment committee supports amending the proposal for an unconditional ban (without derogation), but the discussions in other committees focused on whether or not it is possible to kill seals in a humane way, the effects on Inuit communities and whether there will be WTO repercussions.
However, the debate needs to focus on the relevant questions based on valid information. Animal welfare organisations from all over Europe are convinced that the question we need to ask ourselves is not whether seals can be killed in a humane way, but whether seals can be killed in a humane way in those conditions which are typical for large-scale commercial seal hunts: vast and remote areas, harsh and extreme climates, moving ice floes, and thousands of animals being killed in a few days.
More than 35 years of experience observing the largest seal ‘hunt’ in Canada confirms that humane killing does not take place in practice and equally important, it is impossible to guarantee humane killing in the future on the basis of unenforceable derogations. It ought to be remembered that we cannot consider these sealing activities as a ‘hunt’.
Sealers tend to refer to the activity as a ‘harvest’, and what actually takes place every year in Canada is the slaughter of more than 250,000 seals. Comparing this to the situation in Europe, no slaughter in any European slaughterhouse is a nice sight, but the crucial difference is that this kind of slaughter takes place in a building, which veterinary inspectors can easily access at any given time.
In the sealing business, the competition is high, pelt prices are low and petrol costs are significant. The competition and haste inevitably lead to the killing of thousands of seals without sufficient time to follow humane killing procedures. If, for example, Canada was granted a derogation, then who exactly would go out there to control year after year whether hunters comply with so-called humane criteria in an inaccessible area approximately five times the size of the Netherlands?
According to the current proposal, the country that is granted a derogation will also be in charge of monitoring and enforcement. It is easy to predict what is likely to happen when the government that is responsible for monitoring and enforcement is the same government that has been spending excessive amounts of taxpayers’ dollars on promoting this ‘hunt’.
Animal welfare organisations want to ensure that this regulation will address the concerns of millions of citizens from all over Europe. Member states should get what they asked for: a ban on the trade in seal products without derogation (see existing or notified national legislation in Belgium, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Germany).
Animal welfare considerations need to be included in the objectives of the regulation, as well as nature conservation issues; climate change does not only affect humans, it also affects ice-breeding seal species that need solid ice to wean their pups.
Regulating the trade in seal products should be based on an unconditional ban with a strictly defined exemption for Inuit seal products coming from subsistence hunting. Seal products resulting from wasteful commercial hunts cannot guarantee the necessary animal welfare nor sustainability considerations.
There is neither place nor demand on the European market for seal products coming from an inhumane and unsustainable slaughter.
