CHINA is being pressured by animal rights groups to ban the trade in Canadian seal pelts, oil and meat, Reuters reports. 

Since 2013, the Canadian government has invested more than US$2 million in grants and financing to develop, process and market seal products for sale in China.

This is in response to plans by the Canadian sealing industry to export seal fur, oil and meat to China.

The Canadian government has come under fire for allowing the culling of seals though the hunt, which is under government control. No one suggests that the seals are an endangered species.

"They're shooting at these seals often in choppy waters with rifles so they often cannot get a clean shot and that means the seals suffer terribly from the bullet wounds until the seal hunters get close enough to finally crush their skulls and finish them off," said Humane Society International (Canada) campaign manager Gabriel Wildgen. "Sometimes we've documented seal hunters skinning seals while they're still conscious and still moving."

Hunters and the Canadian government, however, claim the methods used to kill the seals are humane. And the quota given to hunters by the Canadian government this year is 468,000 seals - up from 400,000 in 2014, despite the market for seal pelts collapsing following a near world-wide ban on the furs.

"There is no other market left except for China right now," said Mr Wildgen. "China is not buying many seal products, but the Canadian government and the last remaining company that's buying seal pelts are saying publicly that they see China as the last hope for the seal industry to sell products."

Norway is the largest market for Canadian seal products, according to Wikipedia.