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MONTH: November 2006

European Parliament moves against dog & cat fur, seal pelts

 

The European Parliament on October 13, 2006 approved a ban on importing and selling dog and cat fur in member nations, as part of the first European Community plan for animal protection.

Earlier, on September 6, 368 European Parliament legislators signed a declaration asking the European Community to ban imports of seal products from Canada. Not formally endorsed by the European Union assembly, the non-binding request sought to reinforce legislation already in effect in Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands, and adopted in October by Germany. Norway, the largest European buyer of Canadian seal pelts, is not a European Community member.

Seal Alert founder Francois Hugo, of Huot Bay, South Africa, objected that the European Parliament declaration did not explicitly include a ban on the import of seal pelts from Namibia.

"Whilst Canada kills four times more seals, it does not kill nursing baby seals, and sets its quota at 30% of the pups," Hugo said, "whereas Namibia awards quotas that kill every pup, and even with lengthened sealing seasons still cannot be filled from a seal population declining and suffering from repeated mass die-offs due to starvation."

Namibian fishers, like their Atlantic Canada counterparts, blame seals for fished-out waters.