Seals
According to the Marine Mammal Regulations, Canada do not allow the hunting of whitecoats. Whitecoats are suckling pups, of the harp or grey seal, under two weeks of age.
Most of the seals that are hunted, are young harp seals, called beaters. They were whelped (born) in February or early March in whelping patches on the ice. Such patches vary from 20 to 200 square kilometres, and may contain as many as 2,000 adult females per square kilometre. The pups are abandoned by their mothers at two weeks of age, and remain in the whelping patches until the ice starts to melt in March or early April. The hunt takes place in and around these whelping patches.
Read more about this topic: 2008 Canadian Commercial Seal Hunt
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