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This article was published 25/3/2009 (4207 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HALIFAX, N.S. - Seal hunters returned to the ice in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence for a few hours Wednesday to kill the last remaining seals allowed under their quota off Iles de la Madeleine.

Phil Jenkins, a spokesman for the federal Fisheries Department, said about 17,200 seals were killed on Monday and Tuesday, leaving only a few hundred remaining before the hunt ended at 10 a.m. local time.

ANDREW VAUGHAN / THE CANADIAN PRESS A hunter heads towards a harp seal during the annual East Coast seal hunt in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence around Quebec's Iles de la Madeleine Wednesday.

Helicopters carrying observers from two animal welfare groups headed out to witness the final stage of the hunt, which involved sealers from the Quebec islands.

In addition to sealers in boats, the hunt involved sealers who were able to reach the animals by snowmobile and all-terrain vehicles because of ice that reached the shore.

Jenkins said a hunt in the gulf for sealers from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island is scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. Friday.

"That's the earliest, weather dependent," he said.

About 50 licensed sealers plus their crew will take part in that hunt between Iles de la Madeleine and Cape Breton. It has a small quota of 1,435 animals.

The federal government has set a combined allowable catch for this year's East Coast seal hunt of 338,200 harp, hooded and grey seals.