Canada, the season for the commercial hunt of harp seal is from November 15 to May 15. While Inuit hunt seals commercially year-round, most sealing in southern Canada occurs in late March in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and during the first or second week of April off Newfoundland, in an area known as the Front. This peak spring period is often mistakenly referred to as the "Canadian Seal Hunt", when in fact seal hunting also happens throughout the year all over the Canadian Arctic. In 2003, the three-year harp seal quota granted by Fisheries and Oceans Canada was increased to a maximum of 975,000 animals per three years, with a maximum of 350,000 animals in any two consecutive years. As of 2012, the population in Canada of the Northwest Atlantic harp seals is approximately 7.3 million animals, over three times what it was in the 1970s. Although around 70% of Canadian seals killed are taken on the Front, private monitors focus on the St. Lawrence hunt, because of its more convenient location. The 2006 St. Lawrence leg of the hunt was officially closed on Apr. 3, 2006; sealers had already exceeded the quota by 1,000 animals. On March 26, 2007, the Newfoundland and Labrador government launched a seal hunt website to counter "misinformation about the sealing industry that is [published] by international animal rights organizations". Warm winters in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence have led to thinner and more unstable ice there. In 2007, Canada's federal fisheries ministry reported that while the pups are born on the ice as usual, the ice floes have started to break up before the pups learn to swim, causing the pups to drown. Canada reduced the 2007 quota by 20%, because overflights showed large numbers of seal pups were lost to thin and melting ice. In southern Labrador and off Newfoundland's northeast coast, however, there was extra heavy ice in 2007, and the coast guard estimated as many as 100 vessels were trapped in ice simultaneously. The 2010 hunt was cut short because demand for seal pelts was down. Only one local pelt buyer, NuTan Furs, offered to purchase pelts; and it committed to purchase less than 15,000 pelts. Pelt prices were about C$21/pelt in 2010, which is about twice the 2009 price and about 64% of the 2007 price. The reduced demand is attributable mainly to the 2009 ban on imports of