European Parliament moves against dog & cat fur, seal pelts

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
The European Parliament on October 13, 2006 approved a ban
on importing and selling dog and cat fur in member nations, as part
of the first European Community plan for animal protection.
Earlier, on September 6, 368 European Parliament
legislators signed a declaration asking the European Community to ban
imports of seal products from Canada. Not formally endorsed by the
European Union assembly, the non-binding request sought to reinforce
legislation already in effect in Belgium, Italy, and the
Netherlands, and adopted in October by Germany. Norway, the
largest European buyer of Canadian seal pelts, is not a European
Community member.

Seal Alert founder Francois Hugo, of Huot Bay, South
Africa, objected that the European Parliament declaration did not
explicitly include a ban on the import of seal pelts from Namibia.
“Whilst Canada kills four times more seals, it does not kill
nursing baby seals, and sets its quota at 30% of the pups,” Hugo
said, “whereas Namibia awards quotas that kill every pup, and even
with lengthened sealing seasons still cannot be filled from a seal
population declining and suffering from repeated mass die-offs due to
starvation.”
Namibian fishers, like their Atlantic Canada counterparts,
blame seals for fished-out waters.