Opposition to seal ban grows within EU, where hunters alliance is optimistic rules will change
CBC
A group representing hunters in the Nordic countries says it's more optimistic than ever that the European Union will lift a longtime ban on trading seal products.
The regulation, implemented in 2009 after a highly successful campaign from animal rights groups, deprived Canadian sealers of their primary market.
"Our hope and expectation is that the ban will be reversed and that trade can be possible again," said Johan Svalby, senior advisor for international affairs at the Nordic Hunters Alliance.
Last May, the European Commission launched a formal review of the ban, called a "fitness check."
While the commission regularly reviews its regulations, "we have a sense this time that the commission is serious in its initiative to look into the consequences of the ban", Svalby said.
The review process is taking place as a growing number of EU countries bordering the Baltic Sea worry about the effect the region's steadily increasing seal population could be having on fish stocks.
Last month, Sweden sent the commission a letter requesting the 27-member bloc loosen its rules on trading seal products, given that managing the region's seal population relies on hunters who currently have no market for their meat and pelts.
"There has been a sharp increase in these species in the Baltic Sea, and this is endangering the recovery of certain fish stocks that are important for coastal fisheries", said Peter Kullgren, the Swedish rural affairs minister, during a meeting of European agriculture and fisheries ministers in Luxemburg on Oct. 21.
Finland, Estonia and Latvia support the Swedish proposal to manage grey and ringed seals. All four countries are concerned about the fish the predators consume in the Baltic and the damage they cause to fishing equipment.
"There's a lot of angry fishermen around here", said Jouni Heinikoski, a former hunter and fish harvester in northern Finland, earlier this year. "Because the seal population is so high nowadays, you cannot use gill nets anymore and salmon traps has to be made by special nylon."
Sven-Gunnar Lunneryd, a researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, said some scientists believe that fish stock recovery in the Baltic depends on culling large numbers of seals.
"We have to decrease them and somebody is going to decrease them and that's the hunters", he told CBC News in July. "It's not an easy task.… There needs to be some economic compensation to the hunters."
Svalby, with the Nordic Hunters Alliance, said that while seal quotas are much smaller in Europe than in Canada, "we fill approximately half of the quotas that we have in Sweden and Finland."
Lunneryd added that allowing a seal hunting while banning the sale of seal products goes against sustainable hunting practices.
Run 3 Space | Play Space Running Game
Traffic Jam 3D | Online Racing Game
Duck Hunt | Play Old Classic Game
This story is part of Resonate: Songs of Resilience in recognition of National Indigenous History Month and National Indigenous Peoples Day. CBC Indigenous with CBC Unreserved celebrates communities and families through music.
Indigenous and riverine communities in the Loreto region of the Peruvian Amazon have "chronic exposure" to mercury, according to a new study — and experts say the biggest culprit is gold mining in the region.
Anorexia is a life-threatening eating disorder that can manifest as an intense preoccupation on weight loss.
Students at Clearwater River Dene School in northern Saskatchewan took part in a fish camp last month as part of their school's land-based learning program where they practise language and cultural skills.
Inactive and abandoned oil and gas wells in Canada are a much bigger climate problem than previously thought, emitting almost seven times more methane than the official estimates, according to a new study from researchers at McGill University.
As the province's measles case count approaches 1,000, health experts are raising the alarm about Alberta babies who are being born already infected with the virus.
Sewing is a skill that you will have for a lifetime and it comes with many lessons. Some say it builds patience, care and focus.
It's taken a lot of work to rehabilitate the tiny patch of land at the centre of the small roundabout on Glen Drive and 10th Ave. in Vancouver, but for Katie Berlinguette, it was a labour of love.
The U.S. has approved the world's only twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV, its maker Gilead Sciences announced Wednesday.
Diane Marin has always been determined.
The Canadian government has yet to decide whether it would allow recycling spent nuclear fuel in the country, as the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) announces it will be engaging with the public to choose a site for the nation's second deep geological repository.
About 44 per cent of men living in Canada die prematurely, according to a new report from the Movember Institute of Men's Health.
New data shows more people are filing complaints about obstetrical and gynecological care in Ontario, with insensitivity, poor communication and lack of trauma awareness among the most common grievances.