With regard to the latter issue, the reader is referred to Härkönen et al. (2013). A personal view is that pelt sealing will slowly wither, young people turning away from hanging dead animal skins around their bodies, especially http://www.selleckchem.com/products/CAL-101.html when man-made fibres and coats are warmer and more fashionable anyway (and easier to keep clean). There

will, however, probably always be calls from fishermen for culls, especially if seal numbers keep on increasing. Like many I assume, moreover, there is a certain empathy for native Americans and First Nations People in Canada who have been artisanally hunting seals for thousands of years along the shores and ice packs of the boreal northern hemisphere. Traditionally, the meat has been an important source of fat, protein, iron and vitamins A and B12. Seal pelts have been used by aboriginal people for millennia to make waterproof jackets and boots, and seal fur is

used to make traditional clothes. The Arctic ringed seal (Pusa hispida) is still an important food source for the people of Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic. The ringed seal is also hunted and eaten by the Alaskan Yup’ik people, and the economies of some rural villages in Greenland, such as Aappilattoq, are still dependent upon seal hunting. Sealing also took place in the southern hemisphere, latterly by countries such as New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, but no more. There is still one place in Africa, however, where the industry is (said to be) growing – Namibia. Between the Skeleton Coast National Park to the north and the Namib Naukluft Park to the south is the National West Coast Recreation Area. Here, PLX4032 mw and before 1990, the Government of Namibia decided that the cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus) could be culled and set a quota of 17,000 pups. Today, Namibia claims to conduct the second largest seal Wilson disease protein harvest in the world, because, it

argues, of the huge amounts of fish the seals are said to consume. Seal Alert South Africa has, however, estimated that such losses constituted <0.3% of the West African commercial fisheries. Nevertheless, culling is undertaken from July to November at two colonies in two locations, Cape Cross and Atlas Bay. In 2010, the set quotas for the culls were 85,000 pups and 7,000 bulls at these two colonies, respectively, because, together, they accommodate 75% of the national cape fur seal population. Cape Cross is, however, actually, a designated Seal Reserve, which was established to protect the largest cape seal breeding colony in the world. Cape Cross is, however, also a tourist resort and, in the culling season, the resort’s beaches are sealed off during the early morning hours with nobody, especially not journalists, allowed to enter. In July this year (2013), however, Earthrace Conservation filmed the annual cull covertly in Atlas Bay, one of Namibia’s highest security beaches.