Few issues in Canada provoke greater furore among animal rights groups than the annual spring hunt for seals off the Atlantic coast.
Activists - among them celebrities like Sir Paul McCartney and Brigitte Bardot - decry the hunt as 'the cruellest wildlife slaughter in the world'. They claim seals suffer agonising deaths and are sometimes skinned alive. Meanwhile, hunters and government officials dismiss these claims as mere myths and empty rhetoric, and point to the millions of dollars the hunt brings to remote, cash-strapped communities as reason for continuing the practice.
Now, just as the European Union is considering a ban that could hurt the sealing industry, the Canadian government is introducing new rules intended to ensure a more humane hunt.
The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced last week that it would require hunters to sever the seals' arteries after they are shot or clubbed, to ensure their deaths are swift and less painful.
'Right now, in almost all instances, a seal is dead by the first shot or the first hit,' Phil Jenkins, spokesman for the fisheries department, says. 'But we want to make sure that everything possible can be done so there's no question in any circumstance a seal can be skinned while still unconscious.'
Hunters use rifles or hooked clubs called hakapiks to catch the seals. Then, they are supposed to check that the animals are irreversibly unconscious by touching their eyes to make sure there is no eye movement, or by manually examining their skulls to make sure they are crushed.