The European Union voted by overwhelming majority this past Tuesday to ban the import of all seal products.  The BBC spoke with MEPs Diana Wallis, who drafted the parliament’s report on the trade in seal products, Arlese McCarthy, British Labor chair of the Parliament’s EU internal market committee, and Carl Schlyter, the Swedish Green who sits on the Parliament’s environment committee.  They noted that this follows the wishes of the majority of people, not only in the EU, but around the world, and they reiterated that despite the blatant and pathetic misuse of indigenous people by commercial fisheries to plead their case, the ban will not prevent indigenous people from continuing their sustainable hunts, nor will it stop their ability to sell by-products (crafts, etc.)  The ban also allows for what most of us already recognize as “game management” hunting, however, under the ban this may not be done for profit.

I personally applaud their actions.  It has already impacted this year’s Canadian slaughter – only 17% of this year’s quota have suffered the horrific cruelty of inept bludgeoning and being skinned alive.  And the price of baby seal pelts is down 86% as compared to 2006.

Canada and Norway continue to rattle their sabres, of course, threatening to take their case to the World Trade Organization, but with so many countries around the world having already closed their doors to baby seal pelts and products, they no longer have much of a case.  I pity the Canadians, whose government will spend more money to fight the ban than it brings in for a small number of non-indigenous people and an even smaller number of heavily-subsidized businesses, and particularly with the losses already seen this spring the reality is that those subsidies spent by Canada to support their “hunt” could put its handful of participants on the government dole for the 2-3 months some of them spend wacking babies, with money to spare.  Monies that could be better used to find realistic ways to co-exist with all the species involved, instead of erroneously blaming seals for the negative results of their overfishing practices.  Spurred on, I should add, by the world’s continuing great and greedy appetite for fish-on-demand; something that the EU would be wise to properly address themselves since they, too, are a part of the world’s overfishing problem. 

This is a tough issue, to be sure.  I continue to read the arguments coming from both sides; some sensible and practical, others purely emotional and inflammatory.  And I will be the first to say there aren’t any easy answers.  My personal stance is that there should never, ever be a market for cruelty (whether it is the exploitation of animals or humans) and that is the basis of my own personal and long-standing wish to see this particularly barbaric practice stopped.  Yet simple, moral goodness dictates we must watch out for one another, both humans and non-humans, and if we collectively choose to create a vacuum, we must consider that nature abhors them and then consider what may fill it, and make an honest attempt to steer those consequences towards something that is for the betterment of all involved.  In this case, better for baby seals, who will not find their first few weeks of life an encounter with abject pain and horrific suffering, and better for those about whom it may be said know no better than to mete out such cruelty on an annual basis, having grown up with an extremely limited perspective that fosters seeing other species as mere things instead of sentient beings. 

To those who are quick to make their justification for allowing any country to slaughter baby seals by comparing it to the oft-inhumaneness of agribusiness meat farming I say only that this is simply one step.  One small step, but it is one in the right direction.  It is one small manifestation of the thought that perhaps we can do things better, do things with less deliberate cruelty to those who share this world with we humans, and to take any action in that direction is something positive.