International Day of young seals protection

The young seals have been hunted for many decades, primarily because of their fur. Most often a demand for this fur, often dictated by fashion trends, and not a real need, pushes a person to kill these animals in huge numbers. A few years ago it could be legally sold in Europe, Russia, China and many other countries.

Greenland seals are found in the North Atlantic, White, Barents, Kara and Greenland seas. During eleven months the seal has been carrying the baby, and in the spring adult females and males for a few weeks rise on the ice from the sea to make their charming and helpless offspring appear there.

Two weeks after birth, while the female feeds with milk, the fur of the baby remains snow-white. Because of this fur, dozens of thousands of seals are killed every year, and their murder is very cruel: they are destroyed with iron cudgels. By cruelty, barbarity and the number of murders, this fishery has no equal. By the end of the 20th century, commercial hunting for young Harp seal pups had placed this species of animals on the edge of extinction.

One of the first to oppose the extermination of the young seals was the International Fund for the Protection of Animals IFAW, which attracted wide public attention to this problem. More and more people joined the defenders, who could not stay indifferent to the barbarous and senseless fishing. Annually in March around the world thousands of demonstrations and pickets were organized.

Thanks to this active activity, the authorities of many countries of the world were forced to take economic measures that made the fishing of whitened bears unprofitable. And since 1986, the import and sale of furs in the US, Mexico and Europe has been completely banned. Today, in the EU countries even the appearance in public places in outer clothing of fur is considered a sign of bad taste.

However, even today the fishing of squirrels continues - such a massive and inhumane killing of a young seal is not prohibited in Canada, Namibia and Norway. But the world community continues to struggle. In August 2010, the EU imposed a ban on the sale of all kinds of seal products, which makes it illegal to trade any products from seals produced as a result of all commercial catches. IFAW expects this to put an end to the seal fisheries in these countries.
On the 15-th of March, on the International Day for the Protection of the Proteins, in many countries various actions, demonstrations and pickets against the killing of these animals take place.

According to the materials of calendar.ru