Since 1987 the harvesting of whitecoats has been illegal in Canadian waters; however, once the animals begin to shed their white fur when 12 14 days old, entering the graycoat stage, they may be hunted.
In the 1960s, public indignation at the harvest of whitecoats brought strict regulations and tight governmental controls over harvesting activities, particularly with respect to humane killing and the enforcement of annual quotas.
About this time the killing of whitecoats began to generate worldwide public outrage, and in 1983 the European Union instituted a ban on seal products.
At birth, pups are known as "whitecoats" because of their pure white pelage.
The nickname given to the work done by MIT economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo refers to their use of randomised control trials, familiar to whitecoats working in science labs but not so common among crumpled development analysts in, say, West Bengal.
Embarrassed by all the publicity accusing Canada of inhumane treatment of animals, the government banned killing whitecoats -- the youngest pups up to 12 days old.
In Russia, where the number of new pups has dropped sharply in recent years because of the hunts as well as shrinking ice in the White Sea, the government initially announced a ban on the killing of the very youngest and most highly prized seals, known as "whitecoats".
