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Stop playing politics with the slaughter of baby seals

‘Stop blood on the ice’ - Scotland’s senior European MP (MEP) condemns Canadian Government for playing politics with the death of baby seals

David Martin, Scotland’s most senior Member of the European Parliament (MEP), has expressed disgust at the announcement by the Canadian Government that they will allow the slaughter of 468,000 harp, grey and hooded seals this year.
          
Mr Martin who is a former animal welfare worker and who has spent his whole parliamentary career campaigning to bring this barbarous practice to an end explained: ‘We thought we were getting somewhere when the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in 2009 to ban the trade in seal products but this year’s quota represents an increase of 80,000 on 2010.  80,000 more seal bludgeoned to death’.

‘This is a moral issue but the Canadians are playing politics with the lives of baby seals.  The Harper Government are playing regional politics in the lead up to the Federal Election by giving the regional sealing industry this increase in quota,’ explained Mr Martin.

‘Hundreds of thousands of defenceless baby seals who are already under threat will be killed in this massacre.  Harp seals are ice dependent animals and are already facing the devastating loss of their ice habitat because of climate change.  A responsible government would be protecting these creatures rather than sacrificing their lives for a few votes’.
The 2011 harp seal quota is the highest set by the Canadian Government since quota management was introduced in 1971.

Mr Martin, who is also Vice-President of the European Parliament Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals, continued: ‘National polling in Canada has shown that the overwhelming majority of Canadians want the commercial seal hunt to end.  China, the United States, the European Union, Mexico and Croatia have banned the trade in seal products.  There is an overwhelming humane desire to end this barbaric practice and protect this creature.  The Canadian Government must be made to listen.’