Campaigners see red over seal cull

Animal rights activists have accused Canada of trying to cover up its controversial annual cull of baby seals.

The country's Department of Fisheries has refused to issue observers' permits to journalists and environmentalists who applied to watch the beginning of the bloody hunt off Canada's Atlantic coast, according to local reports.

A record 60 observers had asked to be allowed to watch as fishermen in the Gulf of St Lawrence and Newfoundland set about shooting and clubbing 275,000 baby harp seals.

The Humane Society of the United States, a leading campaigner against seal culling, has accused the Canadian government of doing everything in its power to stop the media documenting the slaughter.

Wayne Pacelle, the society's President and CEO, led renewed calls for the practic to be banned, calling it "senseless and archaic".

Canada says the cull is an important source of income for poor maritime communities, who make millions every year from seal meat and pelts.

Most seal pups are now killed humanely with bullets rather than bludgeoned to death with sharpened clubs in the traditional way, according to hunt supporters.

But the government is under more pressure than ever this year, as the European Union considers whether to launch trade sanctions in a bid to stop the practice.

And the animal rights group whose Sea Shepherd ship has become famous for accosting Japanese whalers have vowed to ignore the Canadian government's warning to steer clear of the culling zones.

The ship's captain Paul Watson from the Sea Shepherd Society, denied the crew were planning to ram Canadian sailors in a bid to disrupt the cull, saying in a statement on the group's website: "All we intend to do is document the horror of the mass slaughter of seals."

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

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