An anti-sealing organization says the cancellation of the annual hunt on Hay Island off Cape Breton is another sign the commercial industry is dying.

Bridget Curran, director of the Atlantic Canadian Anti-Sealing Coalition, says international markets for seal products are shrinking.

The Cape Breton sealers did not go to Hay Island last year, either.

Governments around the world have been closing their borders to seal products, including most recently the legislative yuan of Taiwan, which when it banned all marine mammal products in January had become the third-largest Asian consumer and the fourth in the world in terms of the consumption of marine mammals and their products.

Seal products have also been banned in the Russian Federation, European Union and United States.