EU Tightens Rules On Seal Fur Trade

A leading animal welfare group fears new European measures to manage the seal fur trade will not go far enough. Sky News witnessed a Canadian seal hunt in March 2008 The European Commission is due to announce plans to ban the sale of seal fur obtained using means that cause unnecessary suffering to the animal. New proposals are thought to endorse techniques where the animal is unconscious or adequately stunned before it is killed. But Rosa Argent, of The International Fund for Animal Welfare, told Sky News Online: “Under a commercial hunt there’s no humane way of killing.” The European ruling is likely to have the greatest impact in Canada- the world’s largest exporter of seal fur. Canadian hunters are currently allowed to kill 275,000 each year from the country's existing six million seal population, but tighter European... [read full story]