Animal welfare advocates have, for several years now, reported that seal hunters do not comply with Canadian regulations for what they call humane slaughter.

Advocates have videotaped hundreds of instances in which hunters failed to apply the now-mandated eye blinking test that, veterinarians say, prove the animal is dead.

Even if such measures could be enforced, should they be? The seal hunt is not just despicably cruel. It’s also immoral.

The point of abolishing the hunt is animated by the idea that human beings ought to be able to respect the interest of seals to freely experience their lives.

The boycott on Canadian seafood attests to the failure of trying only to reduce the suffering. Instead of respecting any animals, it uses the profit of one animal commodity against another. This is destined for a cyclical pattern: Once the hunt stops, the boycott stops; people then return to depleting Canadian waters and killing other animals, presumably the less cute.

The time has come to support residents of a depressed economy in ways that acknowledge the importance of the biocommunity as an interconnected whole, and the inherent worth of other feeling beings.