Russia Ban Seal Hunting

• Mar. 20 by Kimberley Gammon (2)

The Russian government has finally taken action against seal baiting and have banned the hunting of baby harp seals.
According to The Guardian the Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin accused the seal hunting as a “bloody industry” and has issued an order protecting seal pups up to a year old.

But is this really enough? Seal hunting is the largest mass slaughter of marine mammals in the world. Russia’s harp seal population has decreased by a third in the last ten years to numbers of only around 200,000.

Seal hunting is also carried out in Sweden, Finland and also Canada. This is a shocking practice especially when you take in to account that every spring over 325,000 seals are killed in Canada alone. Facts about hunting can be found on the Seasheperd site.

Why are such large numbers of seals being slaughtered when seal meat is considered mostly inedible to humans? Synthetic fur has been so well produced that its appearance is almost identical to that of real seal skin, there is no excuse.
On top of this the seal numbers have also been slowly dwindling, especially around Russia because of the shrinking Arctic ice in the White Sea region due to global warming.

A petition can be found on the HSUS site, take some action and put your name down.