The European Union passed legislation Tuesday, May 5, which set the groundwork which would ban the importation of Canadian seal products.  According to a CNN.com web article mentions that the Canadian government has authorized hunters to kill over 350,000 harp seals.  In another web-based article, EU representatives had felt pressure from their European constituents to act in a way that would express their disdain of the brutal practice. 

Not surprisingly, Canadian representatives vowed to take this matter to the World Trade Organization.  Canadian authorities claim that the hunters are acting in an effort to cull the seal population such that the cod population will be able to recover more quickly.    Additionally, advocates of the seal hunt claim that it pumps money into the local economy and only seals that have shed their baby growth of white fur can be killed.  An abundant seal population is blamed for the depletion of cod populations in prime Canadian fishing waters, trolled by hundreds of  commercial fishing vessels. 

However, once nearly a quarter of a million seals have been eliminated,  who or what will be blamed as the next culprit behind the vanishing cod?  Fishermen are already test-marketing a number of entities from a list which includes such items as whales, sharks,  unlicensed or sport fishermen, the Anti-Cod Society, and falling space junk.  Interestingly, such things as overfishing, pollution, and the desire to leave warmer waters to find colder waters for the survival of cod have all been absent from this list.  Apparently, all knowledge about science and biology cease to be applicable in capitalism or money-making ventures.

To be fair, seal hunters sell their wares in the form of fur coats, meat, oils, and for processing into Omega-3 pills.  However, justifying the practice is sustainable because only seals who have shed their fur growth from their first 12 days of life can be killed is a strange way to advocate eliminating a species.  After all, would it be possible to peel off or boil their white fur away after the kill?  If there's money involved, it's almost a certainty that people will practice unethical methods to get their share of loot. 

It's interesting to note that the local Inuit population has been participating in this practice for centuries as a way to provide food and other supplies for their people -though never even close to the numbers now.  It has now become a cash crop of sorts for these local inhabitants, thanks in part to the commercialization of fishing in this area, effectively cloistering the Inuit nation inhabitants in poverty.  Canadian authorities have run out of strategies to deal with the large seal population, which numbers over 5 million. 

'This is ridiculous," bemoaned an unnamed Canadian source.  "I mean, we've tried everything, but all the seals do is bleat and 'arf' at us.  They have no concern for anyone else but themselves." 

Canadian Diplomat resorts to violence
when Harp Seal/Government talks collapse.

However, other counties "farm" these animals the same way as commercial fisheries farm fish.  Another article
notes that the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans has provided veterinarians to discuss a more "humane" way to kill seals.

An estimated five million harp seals live in in the ocean, eating cod.  Five million seals eating cod would eventually deplete the cod population...if cod never reproduced on a rapid level!  Killing hundreds of thousands of seal cubs per year WILL deplete about one million seals, provided pollution, disease, deaths from watercraft accidents, and encounters with predators naturally thin out the crowd.  Wait, nature takes care of this on its own?

Yes, Canadians, there is something known as the Food Chain.  Here's how it works: each animal has another animal which it either eats or is eaten by.  This linear event is known as the food chain.  There is an animal or entity (such as bacteria) at the very bottom) and an animal (like sharks or humans) at the top. 

Apparently the laws of science and biology don't apply in Canada.  I will leave you with the European Union's opinion in this matter:

"Arlene McCarthy, who chairs the European Parliament's internal market and consumer protection committee, said Canada and others cannot ignore the fact that a majority of Europeans are against the hunt and wanted it banned.  For EU lawmakers, she said, those concerns took precedence over the wishes of sealers, fishermen and Inuit groups. "While we of course have sympathy for those particular groups of people, the reality is that we sit here in the European Parliament and that millions of our citizens would like us to do the right thing and ban the cruel trade," she said. "They do not want to buy these products."

The EU exemplifies the purpose of a representative democracy: act in a way which the constituents demand from their elected officials.  Are you paying attention to your lesson in government, U.S. representatives?  Your turn comes up next year.  What have you got?