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European ambassador says seal hunt debate shrouded in sentimentality

The European Commission's ambassador to Canada says efforts are being made to inject scientific fact into the emotionally-charged seal hunt debate, but he says the issue is shrouded in sentimentality.

Dorian Prince said Tuesday the European Commission will soon make a final recommendation about a possible Europe-wide ban on seal products - a decision that could strike a devastating blow to Canada's annual East Coast seal hunt.

Prince, who paid his first official visit to New Brunswick this week since being appointed ambassador several months ago, said Europeans live largely in urban centres and are out of touch with the realities of life in communities that depend on hunting and fishing.

"Most people in Europe live in urban centres far removed from hunting whether in Newfoundland and Labrador, Russia, Greenland or Finland," Prince said in an interview.

"As we get further removed from the realities of agriculture and hunting and so on, we get more sentimental."

Prince said it is very difficult to eliminate emotion from the seal hunt debate in Europe.

He said the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, is awaiting a second report on seal hunts before making its recommendation to the European Parliament.

He said the second report is expected in a couple of weeks.

"The attitude of the commission has been to try to bring this debate back to scientific facts," Prince said.

"We think it is not a good idea to continue on this very emotional track."

Prince said the first report prepared for the commission examined killing methods used in seal hunts around the world.

It found that while it is theoretically possible to kill seals rapidly and without causing avoidable pain, there is strong evidence that effective killing does not always happen in practice.

"The report basically catalogues what it considers to be humane, acceptable methods and what it considers unacceptable methods," he said.

"On the whole, the report is fairly favourable to Canada, I have to say."

Canada's East Coast seal hunt is the largest marine mammal hunt in the world, with an average annual catch of about 300,000 harp seals.

Rebecca Aldworth of the International Humane Society, an animal protection organization, said she is optimistic the European Union will adopt a universal ban on all seal products.

"There is overwhelming evidence that the Canadian seal hunt is not humane," Aldworth said in an interview from Sydney, N.S., where she is documenting the grey seal hunt.

"The European Parliament has received much of this evidence and has examined it. I believe that Europeans are overwhelmingly opposed to trade in seal products and I believe the European Parliament and Commission will respond to their constituents and act to ban seal product trade."

Belgium and the Netherlands have already approved legislation prohibiting the sale of seal products. Germany, Italy and Austria are drafting similar legislation, putting pressure on the European Commission to recommend a union-wide ban.

While those countries aren't Canada's biggest importers of seal products, they serve as a critical shipment and manufacturing point to the larger markets of Norway, Russia and China.

Even Loyola Sullivan, Canada's fisheries ambassador, has acknowledged that it will be tough to overcome the anti-sealing lobby in Europe.

"It's difficult because it's advanced so far," Sullivan said.

"It's got a tremendous foothold in Europe, and most people close to the situation feel that a ban by other countries is imminent, that it's gone too far. It would be unpopular now for a member of parliament in a European country to support the hunt."

In September, Canada launched a challenge to the World Trade Organization in an effort to persuade the Belgian and Dutch governments to reverse their bans, arguing their policies were rooted in misinformation spread in large part by animal rights groups.

Ottawa's complaint remains before the WTO.