This is Still 70,000 Seals Too Many....

Approximately 70,000 harp seals were killed this year out of a commercial quota of 273,000 animals, said a Fisheries and Oceans Canada spokesman. The seven-month long seal hunt ended last week.

This is a significant drop from last year's hunt, in which 217,857 harp seals were killed out of a commercial quota of 275,000. Canada's East Coast seal hunt is the largest in the world, killing an average of 300,000 harp seals annually, before this year's drop.

The global recession and plummeting pelt prices dramatically lowered the number of seals killed in this year's hunt, according to Canadian officials.

Sealers are also grappling with the near certainty that the European Union will ban importing seal products starting in October 2009. The EU bill targeted the Canadian hunt because of the size of the annual slaughter and the way seals are killed — either clubbed, shot with rifles or killed with spiked clubs. Animal rights activists call the hunt "barbaric", while proponents say it provides crucial jobs and food for villagers in isolated northern communities.

Source: ap; Photo: nationalgeographic