now fetch $8 to $15 each. Greenland Seals are abundant in Greenland with an estimated total population of 12 million, and about 82,000 harp seals, 78,000 ringed seals and a much lower number of hooded seals are killed each year (historically, a couple of other seal species were also hunted). The hunter has to have a hunting license and he/she is obliged to register all kills with the authorities. Young seals and mothers with young are fully protected. Hunting is done with a rifle or shotgun, which by law has to be at least a .22 caliber or a 20-gauge, respectively. The most common and widespread method involves using a small boat to slowly approach a seal sitting on ice or swimming at the surface of the water, and shoot it from a distance, aiming for the head. Once shot and killed, the boat rushes up to the seal and hooks the carcass out of the water before it sinks. Another method is sometimes used in places where the sea is almost entirely covered by ice. The hunter slowly crawls forwards on the ice towards a seal, hiding behind a white screen. Once within shooting range, the seal is shot. Although the killed seal can be retrieved with the use of a snowmobile, it is illegal to use a motor vehicle (including snowmobile), plane or helicopter in the hunt itself. Seal hunting is very important to the local societies, especially small rural villages. In 2011, there were almost 8,000 hunters, including 2,100 full-time (the remaining are often fishers–hunters), out of a total work force of 32,000 people in Greenland. The meat is usually consumed locally and the skin is also used for local clothes (for example, Greenland's National Costume contains seal skin, including in the kamiks) or sold abroad. However, exports were hard hit by international campaigns against seal pelts, starting in 1980s (to some degree also later) and often focussing on seals being killed by clubbing or similar methods (especially young, but also adults), methods that were and are not in use in Greenland. As a consequence, Greenland attempted to distance itself from places where such methods were in use. For example, Greenland banned imports of seal skin from Canada for a period in 2006, specifically citing the way seals were killed. The European Union ban on seal skins has an exemption for those that originate from subsistence hunts