PLEASE,HELP! 

 IF YOU CARE FOR THE SEALS, TAKE YOUR TIME AND SEND THAT SIMPLE LETTER TO THE COMMISSIONER. THIS REALLY CAN MAKE DIFFERENCE!

TO:

Jose Manuel Barroso
The President of the Commission   The Commission of the European Union 200 rue de la loi
B  -  1049     Brussels

  Stavros Dimas
The Environment Commissioner   
The Commission of the European Union 200 rue de la loi
B  -  1049     Brussels

 Peter Mandelson
Trade Commissioner 
 The Commission of the European Union 200 rue de la loi
B  -  1049     Brussels
 
Androula Vassilou
Health Commissioner
The Commission of the European Union 200 rue de la loi
B  -  1049     Brussels

Dear Commissioner

The European Commission will soon decide about the EU actions on commercial seal hunting.

I therefore call for a total EU-wide ban on the import and trade of seal products, (skins, oil, etc), with no exemptions. 

Canada’s annual sealing season represents the largest marine mammal hunt in the world. This year the hunting will have seen the slaughter of 275,000 seals, 98% of which will be pups of less than three months old. Many seals will suffer lingering and painful deaths just so that their fur can be used in luxury items traded in Europe and around the world.

I am appalled by the cruelty of this commercial seal hunting. The European Food Safety Authority report found that during Canada’s commercial seal hunt effective killing does not always occur; that animals suffer pain and distress; and that sealers often do not comply with the Canadian regulations.

I believe that a ban on the trade in seal products is the only sensible response. Alternatives, such as higher welfare standards for seal hunting, are unrealistic. Seal hunts take place at speed, in inaccessible areas and unstable environments making it impossible to implement high welfare standards. Canada’s currently deficient Marine Mammal Regulations are often not enforced, so the option of even more regulations is inadequate.

I also believe the Commission must view commercial seal hunting as a conservation issue. The Arctic ice cover is decreasing due to climate change. This greatly reduces the areas for seals to breed and increases pup mortality rates. In 2002, three quarters of the pups died due to poor ice, before the hunt even started! Furthermore, quotas often exceed the Canadian government’s own advice about what is sustainable and in many years, the actual number of seals killed has exceeded quotas. Setting high quotas in the face of uncertainties about ice cover disregards all scientific precautionary principles. These conservation concerns should not be dismissed lightly by the Commission.

The seal hunt is not even an economically viable industry. It only makes up one half of one per cent of the Gross Domestic Product in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and this year the price of a pelt dropped dramatically. The hunt is also being heavily subsidised by the Canadian government, which spends millions on promoting the hunt abroad, funding research, and providing services to hunters. There are now calls to increase that support even further.

The US already banned the trade back in the 1970s.

Opinion polls in Germany, France, the UK, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Belgium, The Netherlands and Sweden show a majority of citizens support a ban on the trade in seal products, and such a ban has been in place in the US since the 1970s.

I urge you to represent the views of the millions of EU citizens who reject this unnecessary trade.

Yours faithfully,