- Bloody industry
Putin put ban on hunting of baby-seals in the White Sea area.
- It is clear that it should have been banned a long time ago, Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the Minister of Natural Resources. He called the baby-seal hunting a “bloody industry.”
The Ministry of Natural Resources is also preparing proposals to ban the hunting of seals up to the age of one, reports Russia Today.
Until now, thousands of baby seals have been killed every year for their precious pelts in the area surrounding the White Sea in Arkhangelsk region.
Putin acknowledged the importance of the hunting industry in the region and said that he would require the government to compensate incomes of the White Sea people in connection with the ban on hunting.
In May last year BarentsObserver wrote that the community of Pomors in Arkhangelsk said a ban on seal hunting as such will pose a serious threat to the centuries-old Pomor fishing tradition. The people living in the villages and settlements around the coast of the White Sea call themselves Pomors, meaning the people living “by the sea.”
Last year the authorities of the Arkhangelsk region suspended baby seal hunting, a ban that will be permanent with the new law by the Ministry of Natural Resources.
