BRUSSELS, Belgium - A coalition of animal rights groups released graphic new video footage Friday of this year's seal hunt off Canada's Atlantic coast in a move to convince the European Union to impose a total ban on seal products.
The activists claimed the footage, which shows seals being shot, clubbed and dragged across the ice, provided more evidence that the hunt is cruel and should be banned.
Sonja Van Tichelen, head of Eurogroup for Animals, said the clips taken in Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence over the last two months proved the hunt needed to be stopped through a complete trade ban.
"We don't like the cruel seal hunt; we don't like these products in Europe,'' said Van Tichelen, whose group represents 44 animal rights bodies across Europe.
They appealed for a total ban not only in Canada but also in Russia, Namibia, Greenland and EU members Finland and Sweden.
Canada has faced the most scrutiny by activists because it is host to the largest commercial hunt in the world. The Canadian hunt of some 335,000 seals in 2006 brought in about $25 million.
Masha Vorontsova from The International Fund for Animal Welfare said hunts in Russia and Norway were just as cruel. She said 14,000 seals were killed this year in the White Sea in the Arctic, down from previous years because of safety concerns over thin ice.
EU spokeswoman Barbara Helfferlich said EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas intends to come forward with legislation in the coming months "which would ban the import and sale of products derived from seals which have been unsustainably hunted ... inhumanely killed.''
The video clips filmed by activists showed sealers using rifles and hakapiks, or spiked clubs, killing seals on ice flows, and then dragging their bloodied bodies over the ice onto waiting ships.
The groups argue that such methods contravene new rules the Canadian government has imposed ahead of this year's hunting season to curb the cruelty.
The rules, meant to appease European concerns, add extra steps to make sure the animals are dead before they are skinned -- a recommendation made in an EU report released in December.
Sheryl Fink, also from IFAW, said the clips proved the sealers were not abiding by the rules and were not making sure the animals were dead before they were skinned.
"The new rule ... does not reduce the suffering and cruelty,'' Fink said.
Friday's appeal was the latest round in an emotional political battle being waged this year between activists and Canadian sealers, backed by Ottawa.
Canadian officials argue a ban would damage already-fragile, isolated communities that depend on the annual seal hunt for incomes and food. They said a ban could also spell disaster for the aboriginal Inuit peoples who live in Canada's Arctic region.
One Canadian sealer has been fighting back with a video of his own that is being played on YouTube.
Wayne Dickson, a sealer based in the Iles-de-la-Madeleine, Que., says opponents of the annual hunt are distributing false information about how the animals are killed.
In the emotional video. Dickson says if the EU moves ahead with a boycott it will have a devastating effect on fishing communities that rely heavily on profits from the seal pelts.
Ottawa has defended the hunt as sustainable, humane, well-managed and a necessary source of income for hunters.
Canada's Special Ambassador Loyola Sullivan warned EU officials earlier this month that Ottawa could take trade action against any ban on seal products such as blubber, meat or pelts. He said such a ban could violate world trade rules.
Dimas and the European Commission has been under mounting pressure from animal rights groups and legislators at the European Parliament to take action.
The EU assembly last year called on the EU to impose a ban on fur imports.
The EU already has in place a 1983 ban on the import of white pelts taken from seal pups.
Several EU countries, such as the Netherlands and Belgium, already have their own bans on all seal products. The United States has banned Canadian seal products since 1972.
