On March 28, the Canadian commercial seal hunt began in earnest, setting off a wave of killing that will take the lives of 275,000 seals—virtually all pups just days or weeks of age.
This is dangerous, expensive work, and sealers hurry to get in and get out of the area—spending little time to ensure the limited suffering of seals. In many years, hundreds of thousands of seals are killed in just a few days.
The sealers literally compete against each other for quotas, killing as many animals as quickly as possible before the region’s quota is reached. Vessel owners are loathe to remain in the treacherous ice conditions of the seal hunt for any longer than they have to, putting added pressure on the sealers to work quickly. The speed at which the hunt is conducted increases the suffering of the seals as sealers fail to take the time to ensure each animal is unconscious prior to cutting them open.
Long hours, slippery ice, fragile ice floes, pressure to work quickly, and moving targets all contribute to the suffering of the seals. In recent years, The HSUS has consistently filmed hunters beating seals repeatedly on the jaw, the face and the body—failing to render the animals unconscious. Veterinary studies have confirmed that sealers often fail to crush the skulls of the seals they club, instead striking them in other areas such as the jaw—failing to ensure unconsciousness, let alone death.
Some of this has to do with how inappropriate the weapons used to kill seals are for use in the sealing environment. Seal hunters use wooden bats, hakapiks (clubs with metal spikes on the end) and rifles to kill seal pups. Post mortem examinations performed by veterinarians in recent years have revealed that an unacceptably high percentage of seals were not even rendered unconscious after being struck with clubs or hakapiks or shot with rifles.

When No One’s Watching

Hundreds of thousands of seal pups are killed every year, almost entirely out of sight of the public—as well as the authorities who might penalize sealers who violate regulations.
The hunt takes place in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, over an area of the size of France—such a large span that the Canadian government cannot effectively monitor the thousands of sealers on hundreds of vessels to ensure standards for humane killing are being met. Most of the slaughter happens so far off shore that very few individuals—public or government—can even reach it.
But more and more, the world is turning its eyes to this senseless and cruel slaughter. The HSUS and HSI are off the east coast of Canada again this year, bearing witness to the killing with the hope that this year will be the one to galvanize public sentiment into action, persuade the European Union to ban seal products, and finally shut down this hunt forever.

For more information

http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/marine_mammals_news/inherently_inhumane.html