Canadian Seal Hunt

Canada’s controversial annual seal hunt has begun in Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence whilst Animal Rights Activists and international bodies have continued to rally against imported seal products.
According to MSNBC news, the groups claim that the hunt is ‘cruel, difficult to monitor, ravages the seal population and doesn't provide a lot of money for sealers’. Even though it remains ‘the largest marine mammal hunt in the world’, it is claimed that the seal industry is ‘dying’ and thus ‘change is due’.
The hunt is defended by sealers and the Fisheries departments as a ‘good source of income for isolated fishing communities, humane and well-managed’.
Currently, the total allowable catch for the year is set to 280,000. In 2006 the 335,000 catch brought in around $25 million. The seal blubber is mostly used for oil, and seal pelts are generally used for the fashion industry in Norway, Russia and China
The Netherlands, Belgium and the USA ban seal products, many European Union countries do not import Canadian seal products, and Russia has recently stated it will ban baby-seal hunting