MEP calls for EU to ban seal fur imports
05 March 2006
The EU is facing calls to ban the import of seal fur as the world's largestseal hunts get underway in Canada and Russia.
Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas has called for an EU-wide ban of all sealproducts after it emerged that more than a million wild harp and hoodedseals have been slaughtered in Canada in just the last three years - andover a hundred thousand seal pups have suffered a similar fate in Russia.
Dr Lucas, who is vice-president of the RSPCA and the European Parliament'scross-party animal welfare group, said: "More than 20 years after the EUbanned the import of fur products from the very youngest seal pups, hundredsof thousands of seals pups annually - most just a few weeks old - areclubbed on the ice floes or shot from moving boats as they attempt to flee.Many are skinned alive.
"And every year there is public outrage when pictures of the hunt arebroadcast around the world - but the most 'telegenic' pictures are takennear the end of the annual hunt, and the outrage comes too late for anothergeneration of seals."
"It is high time the EU adopted a complete ban on the import of all sealproducts to try and cut off the demand for fur that fuels this barbaricannual ritual, in line with the wishes of EU citizens and the EU's ownrecently-adopted 'Animal Protection Action Plan'."
Adopting an import ban would be entirely consistent with EU and world traderules enshrined in the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), bothof which allow exceptions to free trade on the grounds of 'public morality',a concept understood to include concern over animal welfare issues.
Dr Lucas added: "Banning the import of all seal fur would be a simple andrelatively cheap way of saving thousands of animals' lives and showing theEU takes animal welfare and protection issues seriously."
