TORONTO — Canada’s annual seal hunt will start at the end of the week, and hunters will be employing a more humane way of killing them, the government said Tuesday, but animal-rights activists condemned the planned killing as inhumane.
Phil Jenkins, a spokesman for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said the hunt would begin Friday if weather permits.
Jenkins said new rules have been implemented to ensure that seals are dead before they are skinned. Hunters will be required to sever the arteries under a seal’s flippers, he said.
Animal-rights groups said they still opposed the hunt.
“They’ve added bleeding to the killing process,” said Rebecca Aldworth, director of Canadian wildlife issues for the Humane Society of the United States. “This won’t change anything.”
