Every Spring in Canada shortly after the female harp seals have their babies on the frozen ice floes just off shore, the boats arrive with men aboard who are there to kill the snow white babies for their coats. It is a gruesome, horrible scene with the pristine white of the snow turning red and the baby seals crying as they are being clubbed to death.

This year however, things will being much different. The Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and the Russian Federation has just banned the import and export of harp seal skins. This is very significant because according to the government of Canada, it is Russia that exports up to 90% of Canada's exports of of seal skins.
It’s the 2nd largest victory in the campaign to end commercial sealing since the European Union banned non-Inuit seal pelts. This was in 2009 and also in 2009, Russia had ended their own participation in the seal hunt. This was after many anti-sealing protests were held in Moscow and 25 other Russian cities. Russian Prime Minister Putin has been highly against the importation of seal skins and has been quoted as saying that it should have been banned a long time ago.

So now with the Russian market of seal pelts closed off and the high probability of China breaking their promise to export seal meat due to safety concerns, it looks as though the already weakened Canadian seal industry has seen it's last days. Although it is yet to be seen, this is a major milestone for those concerned with animal welfare and wildlife preservation around the world.