Two animal rights organisations released videos showing what they say are hunters killing seals in Canada's annual commercial seal hunt which opened on Monday.  The International Fund for Animal Welfare said its video was shot over two days, March 24 and 25, which is phase one of the hunt on Canada's East Coast, in the Magdalen Islands.

The Humane Society of the United States released a video it said was shot on March 25th, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Canadian officials are defending the start of the annual seal hunt as a financial necessity for isolated communities, as sealers faced pressure from a possible European Union ban on imported seal products.

Animal rights groups insist the hunt is cruel, difficult to monitor and ravages the seal population.

But sealers and Canada's Fisheries Department say the hunt is sustainable and humane, and earns money for isolated fishing communities in Atlantic Canada.

Though acknowledging that the shooting or bludgeoning of the animals is a bloody activity, Canadian authorities contend the animals are killed quickly and do not suffer unnecessarily.

The hunt which is the world's largest marine mammal hunt was called "inherently inhumane" earlier this month by a European Parliament committee that endorsed the bill to ban the import of seal products to the 27-member union.

Ebru News/Agency