Hundreds rally in Brussels in push for seal hunt ban

About 250 anti-seal-hunt protesters rallied outside the European Union headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday.

The protesters demanded that the 27-country EU impose a total ban on all imports of seal products from Canada and other countries that have annual seal culls.

Tuesday's demonstration coincided with the opening of the seal hunting season in the southwestern African country of Namibia.

The EU is under pressure from animal rights groups and legislators at the European Parliament to take action over the seal hunt, which they say is cruel and inhumane.

The activists have called for a total hunting ban that would affect Canada, which has the world's largest commercial hunt, along with Russia, Namibia, Greenland and EU members Finland and Sweden.

The EU's environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, is expected to propose a partial ban. It would prohibit the sale of products from seals the EU determines have been killed inhumanely or culled in hunts that it considers not sustainable.

In Canada, seal hunting takes place mostly in the Gulf of St. Lawrence between November and May.

The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans allows hunters to kill up to 270,000 seals each year.