How are the seals killed?
The Canadian Marine Mammal Regulations, which govern the hunt, stipulate sealers may kill seals with wooden clubs, hakapiks (large ice-pick-like clubs) and guns. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, clubs and hakapiks are the killing implement of choice, and in the Front, guns are more widely used. It is important to note that each killing method is demonstrably cruel. Because sealers shoot at seals from moving boats, the pups are often only wounded. The main sealskin processing plant in Canada deducts $2 from the price they pay for the skins for each bullet hole they find—therefore sealers are loath to shoot seals more than once. As a result, wounded seals are often left to suffer in agony—many slip beneath the surface of the water where they die slowly and are never recovered.
Early in the season, younger seals are usually killed on the ice with clubs or hakapiks. Later in the season, beaters and older seals are usually shot with a rifle, both on the ice and in the water. Seal pups have traditionally been clubbed to death, but in recent years thinning ice has led to increased shooting on ice and in open water. When clubbing, sealers may only “stun” a pup, resulting in the skinning or bleeding of a live seal. Shooting also causes significant suffering. The Royal Commission on Seals and Sealing recognized it is extremely difficult to guarantee a clean kill when shooting at seals in the water or on moving ice floes. Seals are often wounded and escape to die under the ice. (These “uncounted kills” are not included in government catch statistics.
