Major EU Study Highlights Cruelty of Seal Hunts
20 December 2007
The biggest, most authoritative, study ever undertaken on the killing and skinning of seals (Animal Welfare aspects of the killing and skinning of seals) has just been published by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
Many of the report’s conclusions match the experience of Respect for Animals.
Respect for Animals has witnessed and documented the Canadian seal hunt for the last three years and has condemned it as inherrently cruel. EFSA’s report recommends that methods used to kill animals should ‘not cause avoidable pain, distress and other forms of suffering’.
It then looks at the methods used to kill seals in Canada and points to the potential for all of these to cause avoidable suffering.
The main methods used to kill seals in Canada are shooting (using rifles, usually from long range) and clubbing with a club or hakapik. EFSA recommends that attempts should not be made to kill seals by sealers in adverse weather conditions or on ‘moving substrates’ which are both commonly the case during the Canadian hunt.
Shooting - the main method used in Canada - is normally carried out from boats pushing their way through broken ice pans. EFSA concludes that this method poses ‘an unknown risk of causing avoidable pain, distress and suffering’. It adds that it is likely that an unknown proportion of the animals will only be wounded.
The report is also scathing about the Namibian seal hunt saying it causes considerable disturbance to breeding colonies and fear, distress and other forms of suffering to the animals.
It goes on to say that ‘both targeted and non-targeted animals may sustain injuries before they are killed or escape, during the pup hunt’.
Also of interest - bearing in mind the harassment that observers of the Canadian hunt have been subject to over recent years - is the recommendation that ‘hunts should be open to inspections without undue interference’.
The EFSA report follows a wide consultation of stakeholders including Respect for Animals as well as governments, including the Canadian, and the sealers themselves.
EFSA panel members included animal welfare experts and biologists as well as a Canadian seal scientist who is also a board member of the Fur Institute of Canada.
Commenting on this new report, Mark Glover, speaking on behalf of Respect for Animals said: ‘The time for talking is over. This latest report, like many before it, highlights the cruelty of seal hunts and shows why the people of the world want them to end. It is now incumbent upon governments to act - for the European Union to ban the import of all seal products and for Canada and Namibia to ban their seal hunts.’
NOTES FOR EDITOR
EFSA is the keystone of European Union risk assessment. It also provides independent expert advice to the European Commission on animal welfare issues.
The EFSA report can be found at: www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/News_PR/pr_ahaw_seals_en.pdf.