Canada Seeking WTO Punishment of EU for Baby Seal Bludgeoning Ban
Seals are typically hunted by bludgeoning the victims to death so as to preserve their skin intact. This strikes many as inhumane. And while some inhumane animal practices—like the standard way of raising cows and steers for beef and dairy purposes—lead to products that the majority of people enjoy, there aren’t that many of us that rely on seal products in our daily lives. Consequently, the European Parliament voted last week in favor of a ban on the import of seal products. It’s a move being hailed by animal rights groups, but Canada, the world’s largest seal exporter, is threatening WTO action against the EU.
The merits of this particular case aside, I think Henry Farrell is right to say that a win for Canada would probably spell big trouble for WTO fans. When foes of trade liberalization are able to make adorable baby seals the face of their cause, it’s hard to oppose them. This makes me wonder why the seal issue is being handled as a trade policy matter in the first place. In other words, why ban the import of seal products rather than simply ban selling seal products? Clearly the EU’s concern here is with the existence of a commercial market for dead seals rather than with the transnational flow of seals per se.
49 Responses to “Canada Seeking WTO Punishment of EU for Baby Seal Bludgeoning Ban”
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July 20th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
In other words, why ban the import of seal products rather than simply ban selling seal products?
Isn’t it just a lot easier to enforce? Trade bans mean you don’t have to deal with messy “grandfather” issues.
July 20th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
i think the only way to stop the flow is by tightening the seals.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I’m pretty sure that all of Seal’s babies are German citizens, since Heidi Klum is German (and he’s British), so the EU cannot ban them within the EU, as per the Schengen Agreement. All they can do is ban the importation of future babies of Seal’s, and considering that Heidi Klum seems to get pregnant every time they go to British Columbia, that’s not a bad place to start.
Wait, what?
July 20th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Putting up a picture of a seal pup is incredibly disingenuous. Canada bans the hunting of seal pups–only a specific number of adult seals can be hunted. They are generally shot, not bashed in the head. The government regulates and monitors the seal hunt.
The only reason people get up in arms about the seal hunt is because the pups are so damn cute. But hunting seals is no different whatsoever from any sort of game or sport hunting.
And Europeans are being incredibly inconsistent here. More mink are killed in Europe in a week to make fur coats than seals are killed in a year.
Finally, what about foie gras? Veal? All sorts of our culinary practices involve the killing of animals. This is no different.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Further, aren’t most of the seal hunters indigenous Canadians? But I suppose Eskimos aren’t as ‘cute.’
July 20th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
If they outlaw seals, then only outlaws will have seals.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
I wish those stupid inuits would stop killing baby seals for subsistence like they have been for thousands of years. Good thing the courageous bureaucrats at the EU have come along to help force those silly eskimos into more acceptable forms of employment for natives (Meth dealing, tim horton’s, etc.)
July 20th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
I would like to have a chance to club a baby seal one day, it looks like it would be an interesting and valuable experience.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Persia: Some Eskimo girls are VERY cute.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
If those brave inuit are hunting seals for subsistence not sure how the EU banning their trade does a damn thing. Though it may cause Canadian PR flacks to find other work.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Why ban the import of seal products as opposed to the products themselves? Because Sweden has the second largest seal hunt in the world. I don’t hear the EU complaining about it.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Brad makes a good point, but I don’t see that his conclusion is very thoughtful or moral. Maybe we should make ethical choices in all areas, and not just use accepted cruelty to justify all cruelty.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
I don’t like the idea of seal clubbing much either, but i think it’s terrible that this is what animal rights groups waste their time on. Yeah, it’s bad, but to focus on seal clubbing at the expense of trying to protect species that are in grave danger of going extinct seems like a tremendous waste of resources.
Seals are in no danger of going extinct, unlike their predators. Canada’s an easy target for the EU to direct their anger at, and as mentioned before, who is going to argue with a cute baby seal? Try banning foie gras in europe and see how far that goes. I don’t like the seal hunt, it makes us as canadians look bad, but i’d far rather these people focus on a way to save the polar bear, for example, since there are a lot less than 8 million of them in the wild.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Perhaps they really are being protectionists. It seems like there ought to be a way to kill seals without damaging their fur or bludgeoning them. Why not poison them?
July 20th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Give me a break. Using products from cows that have had their brains piffed by a bolt gun is different from using those made from seals that have had their brains piffed by a rifle or a club.. because more people do it?
Let’s face it, if it weren’t for cute pictures of baby seals, no one would give a shit. If seals were tasty invertebrates (ice squid, perhaps), we wouldn’t be here.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
“I wish those stupid inuits would stop killing baby seals for subsistence like they have been for thousands of years.”
And exporting their skins to Europe, they’ve been doing that for millennia as well?
July 20th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
“Because Sweden has the second largest seal hunt in the world.”
Not even close.
The annual quota for culling in sweden is 200 seals a year.
Which isn’t going to go very far split up amongst the 475 million citizens of the EU.
“Good thing the courageous bureaucrats at the EU have come along to help force those silly eskimos”
Just as well there’s an exemption for the inuit then isn’t it.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
I look to you Mr. Yglesias for responsible, factual analysis and usually respect your efforts. This piece is so shoddy as to make me question all your work. You have chosen to peddle the propaganda of those using the seal baby myth to raise tens of millions for their own well-paid employment. They run a business of raising money from the gullible, such as yourself, based entirely on lies and distortions. Canada does not allow the harvesting of baby (white-coat) seals. It does not happen. It is a lie. Canadians harvest older seals as they do salmon, bison, lobster and geese, by methods approved as humane. For seals, this involves shooting. Seals exist in abundance and the harvest is no threat to their sustainable numbers, in fact they are growing in number. The harvest is one of the all too few cash generating economic outlets for the Inuit of the Arctic region. They use the animal for subsistence purposes, food and clothing and sell some of the skins for profit, although with the efforts of the phony environmental groups milking this issue, profit is negligible. Fishermen of Newfoundland also harvest as they have for hundreds of years for the same reasons. Ask any of these salt of the earth often poor people if they would prefer to earn what employees of the phony environmental groups earn and some might be able to hold their ethical noses and jump aboard the boondoggle. I would expect you to lay out a factual overview of reality and make comment, not get sucked into this shallow crap meant for unknowing city suckers.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
why ban the import of seal products rather than simply ban selling seal products?
C’mon Matt, you know this. What is the EU, at its core? It’s an economic union that enforces common tariffs. While there’s always arguments about a common foreign policy, and internal market stuff, there’s no argument that the EU has the right to set tariffs.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Skiddie is right.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Sometimes blogs are a cheap excuse to do journalism without easy 10minute research )-:.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Brad and freddy are right – this article is terribly inaccurate. Canadians no longer hunt baby seals, which is why they are pretty upset about the ban. I personally am still against the hunt, but let’s at least argue on the real facts. I mean, what are we, Republicans?
July 20th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Also – apparently the main EU constituency harmed by the seal ban is the Scottish, since they use a lot of seal fur in sporrans.
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Sporran39s-fate-dangling-after-sealfur.4319094.jp
July 20th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Canada bans the hunts on baby seals, so that’s just a red herring. Groups like the Worldwide Wildlife Federation and the International Fund for Animal Welfare have concluded that the Canadian seal hunt is humane.
And it’s guaranteed to be at least as humane as the wholesale slaughter of most every animal that goes on in Europe. This is sensational, emotional hypocrisy not grounded in any fact at all.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Putting up a picture of a seal pup is incredibly disingenuous. Canada bans the hunting of seal pups–only a specific number of adult seals can be hunted. They are generally shot, not bashed in the head.
Brad, you ignorant slut – how much wrong can you cram into one paragraph?
To begin, the only thing “banned” is the hunting of “white coat” seals – which is a far cry different than banning the slaughter of seal pups. Harp seals molt their white fur at 12-14 days. Can we agree that a 15 day old seal is not yet an adult? Indeed, harp seals don’t swim until about 25 days old, so it is no small coincidence that the overwhelming majority of seals slaughtered are between 15-25 days old (ie. they don’t know how to escape). Only an ignoramus or liar like Brad would suggest these aren’t pups – even if they have lost the cuteness of their white fur.
Secondly, most seals are indeed clubbed, not shot. From an ethical perspective, as long as it is done correctly (although it is frequently not), I find this ethically preferable to shooting. Indeed, the reason shooting is disfavoured is that it is often imprecise enough that it merely injures the seal so that it may slip into the water and perish some indeterminate time later (but out of the reach of the hunter); shooting also damages the pelt.
I deplore animal violence of all kinds (I’m a vegetarian), so I do not restrict my disapproval solely to the seal hunt. But the seal hunt – unlike the killing of many other animals – is particularly wasteful, since usually only the pelt is used, and is almost entirely devoid of any real demand for the products arising from the hunt.
July 20th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
freddy, if I agree with you that the slaughter of white coat pups is banned, will you agree with me that a 15 day old seal is still a pup?
Your economic argument, of course, makes no sense whatsoever. If there is, as you acknowledge, little demand for the products, how does that afford a living to the hunters? Well it doesn’t: for all the outcry over the seal hunt, it generates about $2M in revenue for the actual hunters.
You conclude, naturally, by displaying the same ignorance of environmental groups that you accuse them of fomenting. Of all the ways in the world to make money, getting involved in the environmental movement would rank about near the bottom.
July 20th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
And it’s guaranteed to be at least as humane as the wholesale slaughter of most every animal that goes on in Europe.
Please don’t consider this to be an apologia for the slaughter of farm animals, but this is just not true. Unlike most abattoirs, which generally require government inspectors to ensure the humane slaughter of such animals, the seal hunt receives very little government coverage (and environmentalists seeking to ensure the hunt complies with the law are – by law – required to stay 1km away). So while in theory the seal hunt could be considered humane, there are abuses that go unchecked, so that one cannot say that it is comparable to what happens in a slaughterhouse.
July 20th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
The Heidi Klum klowns should check out bullfighting. Then they wouldn’t even have to leave their own continent.
July 20th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
The European Union has a long documented history of anti-arctic policies, mostly due to business interests in Northern Europe. The current 15% tax on Pacific Halibut restricts one of the most sustainable Pacific fisheries, yet Europeans continue to consume 40% of the Pacific Pollack, which has decimated Salmon catches and pushed thousands into poverty.
July 20th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
EU hypocrisy aside, there is no such thing as a sustainable ocean fishery. Don’t kid yourself, AITC.
July 20th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
19/20 are correct but don’t elaborate. In answer to Matt’s question on importation v. sales ban:
The EU institutions have the authority to impose a trade ban directly through a regulation that is enforceable immediately. In order to impose a sales ban, they would have to pass a directive that each member state would then have to incorporate into its own laws through its normal legislative procedures. That takes a much longer time, and there would inevitably be holdouts (e.g., the UK) who would not pass implementing legislation without extra prodding.
July 20th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
The Heidi Klum klowns should check out bullfighting.
Or the raising of animals on “factory farms.”
July 20th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
This is not a bureaucracy in working, but democratic Parliament. So far from being “heartless”, it follows politics of defending cute furry animals slaughtered by furriners. Face it: how you compare, on the cuteness scale, a baby seal with a goose? And minks are kind of vicious, and weasely. I imagine effective counter-lobbying a proposed ban on foie gras including tasting sessions for the parlamentarians.
And if the dollar amount of seal fur trade is negligible, all the better (for politics, that is). Inuit should develop market in China, I guess. I recall that otters were almost exterminated in Alaska in 18-19 century because of the decisions of “heartless bureacrats”, otter furs being a high fashion among the Mandarins (Chinese imperial beaurocrats!). As a result, possession of Alaska became a money loosing preposition and Russia sold it for relatively small money to USA.
Coming soon: weighting settlers and Hamas on the cuteness scale. (It already started, but the process takes years.)
July 20th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Wholesale shoes direct from the factory. Wholesale shoes,, Nike shoes, nike af1, nike shox, nike r4, nike rt1, ATO, BAPE, Bathing Ape, Puma Selling Dunk
July 20th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Tom Veil deserves some kind of prize for both making a hilarious comment and having a NowhereMan related handle.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:40 am
@Rob Mac
Our people have been sustainably fishing the ocean for 6,000 years. It’s the large scale commercial operations that aren’t sustainable.
July 21st, 2009 at 2:19 am
maybe because Canada has a point? If the EU actually gave a shit about seals that’s exactly what they’d do.
Sometimes you’re awfully dumb
July 21st, 2009 at 3:25 am
On a related, but OT, note, I was at the pet store the other day buying that nasty wet food for the cats (you don’t want to get it on your hands by accident) and saw that they had chinchillas for sale. Those cute little fuckers looked like they just stepped out of a pixar movie. The first guy who decided to farm those for fur was a cold-hearted motherfucker.
And I,m all for a sustainable harvest of any adult critter that a person might find tasty.
July 21st, 2009 at 4:36 am
Where is Hector? Because let’s face it, this is just another reason to hate the EU – they don’t support the clubbing of seals, and use supranational regulations to punish those who simply want to make a living clubbing seals, so others among us can wear fashionable fur, without having to worry about any incidental loss of value when it is collected.
And this quote from Wikipedia is particularly damning when viewing how EU level ‘democracy’ works – ‘A European Union ban on seal products from the commercial hunt is expected to take effect in October 2009, after the European Parliament voted on May 5, 2009, with 550 in favour of a ban, 49 against and 41 abstentions.’ Oh, wait – those are the elected EU representatives voting on the ban. Obviously, most people in the EU are in favor of clubbing seals. Well, except for Belgium – ‘In January 2007, Belgium became the first European country to ban all seal products in a unanimous vote of Belgian parliamentarians.’
Thus providing proof that Belgium is the secret master of the EU puppet theater, and is only interested in protecting its own seal clubbing industry.
Maybe Hector can dance on a pile of seal bodies when the EU meets its inevitable downfall.
Oh, I have also heard that the EU actually finds GMOs and hornmone beef unacceptable for human consumption. Strangely, that view seems to be widely shared by EU citizens, for reasons that undoubtedly have nothing to do with the EU actually being able to reflect the views of its citizens.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:23 am
brad in #5:
“..only a specific number of adult seals can be hunted.”
Not so. I read the cutoff is 12 weeks (here, comment 29); so the cute whitecoat pups like Matt’s photo are indeed protected. The slightly older ones you can kill look like this. So what? If it were a rational cull to protect fisheries, they would concentrate on breeding adult females.
July 21st, 2009 at 7:20 am
I think its a matter of jurisdiction, what the EU has power to deice and whatnot.
July 21st, 2009 at 8:34 am
They could anally electrocute them, like the EU does to 2 million foxes per year. Or they could gas them, like the EU does to 20 million minks per year. I’m no animal rights activist, but the EU countries are just being disgustingly hypocritical here.
July 21st, 2009 at 10:29 am
Quick note re: your “cute baby seal” picture and comment. It’s illegal in Canada to “bludgeon” baby seals. It happens, but not often, especially considering the massive amount of civil oversight the hunt is subjected to.
And re: your “factory farming produces goods that everyone loves” comment. It’s also proportionately far far far far less humane the way their forced to live their entire lives than seals who live free on the open ocean until the hunt takes place.
July 21st, 2009 at 10:45 am
When you ask , “Why [does the EU Parliment] ban the import of seal products rather than simply ban selling seal products?”
The answer is simple. The EU Parliament does not have the authority to ban the sale of seal products, but it can ban imports of said products.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Fur seal walks into a bar.
Bartender says: “What’ll you have?”
Fur seal says: “Anything but a Canadian Club!”
July 21st, 2009 at 12:47 pm
It’s illegal in Canada to “bludgeon” baby seals.
Kindly stop lying about this.
It is illegal only to kill “white coat” baby seals. They molt their white coat after 12-14 days. So although they stop being white coats, they don’t stop being babies – unless you consider a 15 day old seal not to be a baby.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Correction to my comment #40: the NYT source article confirms that the cutoff is 12 days not 12 weeks, as I wrote. So the seals killed are still pups, only with grey fur.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Not Scottbot,
What nonsense. I oppose clubbing of baby seals. I also oppose American factory farms as they currently exist. While I am not opposed to eating meat in general, I try to minimize my consumption of beef, pork, and chicken in the United States or other countries which rely on factory farming. (Well I don’t eat beef in general FWIW).
My hatred of the European Union, and all other forms of cosmopolitan late-capitalism, has much weightier sources than their policy as regarding the Canadian seal hunt. (Though I fail to see just why the Europeans don’t like genetically modified plants- that seems pretty dumb to me).
July 21st, 2009 at 4:23 pm
How can you stop someone from selling something if there is a demand?