Side Comment

As an avid animal-lover and an advocate of humane animal treatment (and monthly donor to both the World Wildlife Fund and the World Society for the Protection of Animals), I can in all sincerity say that I'm absolutely appalled by the EU's decision to move towards banning the import of seal products.

As a meat-eater in a society of 98% meat-eaters, I understand where my food comes from and it's important for people to realise the steps to getting it to your grocer. Slaughter of an animal is at best a horrid and gruesomely unpleasant sight, but we eat meat and that's how meat is rendered. The regular meat market is comprised mainly of farm-raised livestock kept in tiny cages, unable to thrive in their natural way, pumped up with hormones, and living in their own filth and feces. The EU has no objection to such practices, and to boot, allows the production, promotion, and sale of veal (calf forced to sit stationary by short chain until slaughter) and foie gras (force-fed duck or goose to tenderise liver). Due to a lengthy and despicably corrupt campaign of lies and manipulation by the FFAW and PETA, the EU has caved in a grotesque display of hypocrisy.

The debate about whether seals in the annual seal hunt are killed in a humane way is a long and divisive one and one that will continue indefinitely. But there's no denying that seals are not killed in a way any less humanely than any other mass-produced farm animal. And add to that, they live in the wild until their death - as we advocate for free range, hormone-free animals... well, how much more free range and organic can you get?

There are humane ways to raise and slaughter livestock and the EU has done nothing to push regulation on that front. I'm sure the fact that most of these animals aren't cute and cuddly looking, and the fact that so many Europeans don't want to give up their foie gras and veal (as opposed to seal, which is not quite as wide spread a choice of meat there) doesn't really help their cause for humane treatment.

So I would say this - It's a hypocritical and ultimately unfair choice to advocate protecting seals from inhumane killing, and at the same time not objecting to the treatment of other animals via an equally aggressive economic boycott campaign, and we're certainly not seeing that. My advice - buy organic, free range when possible and inform people on the issue. No one wants to see an animal unnecessarily harmed before it becomes meat, but numerous studies have shown that there's little more that could be done to kill seals in a more humane way and there's no more suffering on the ice than on the killing floor of the slaughter house.