In the 1970s, a sustained campaign convinced much of the world that protesters were saving cuddly seals from murderous killers near the Arctic Circle. Before long, people around the world became accustomed to seeing images of hunters with clubs, looming over a fluffy white-harp seal pups.

Europe was the primary market for seal products at the time. After a public outcry, the European Economic Community banned the import of white-harp seal pup furs in 1983, and then the EU later extended the ban to all seal products in 2009, citing “moral concerns”…