By DANNY PENMAN

Last updated at 10:16 03 April 2008

The baby seal looks into the eyes of her executioner. Barely a flicker of emotion shows on the fisherman's face as he smashes a steel-tipped club into her mouth. She lies whimpering on the ice, blood pouring from her jaw and nose.

But she is not yet dead, so the sealer hits her in the face another four times before slamming a hooked "hakapik" club into her stomach and dragging her across the ice towards the ship.

Yet even this savagery is not enough to kill the poor creature.

A few seconds later, the pup starts wriggling furiously. She is clearly still alive, though in terrible agony. The fisherman smashes her head another three times.

I pray to myself that she is dead before she is skinned - but from where I am standing, it is impossible to tell.

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Savage:'It's quite clear that the sealers are failing to adhere to the new regulations. It's the same old hunt we've seen in the past'

Sad to say, this pitiful scene was far from unique when I visited the Canadian ice floes last weekend to see whether the introduction of new rules designed to make the country's annual seal cull "humane" have been properly implemented.

Under these regulations, a pup must first be shot or battered into unconsciousness.

The fisherman then has to check that an animal is fully "insensible" before slicing open the arteries near

its flippers, allowing the creature to "bleed out" before it can be skinned.

These rules were brought in to forestall a possible EU ban on the import of sealskins.

The European Commission is currently mulling over a ban which, if it becomes law, would destroy the sealing industry.

As Phil Jenkins, spokesman for the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, explains: "We're trying to make sure there is no possible way that a seal could be skinned while it was irreversibly unconscious but not dead.

"It's really going the extra mile to make sure that it's as humane as it can be."

Having travelled to Nova Scotia to investigate the slaughter at close range, I can say categorically that the new rules are being completely ignored by the fishermen.

They are not even paying lip service to them.

To make matters worse, not only are the Canadian authorities making no attempts to enforce the legislation, they are also desperately trying to prevent the media and other observers witnessing what really goes on.

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Slaughter: A harp seal struggles to get away from an axe-weilding hunter

Brutal: The hunter drags his butchered quarry across the ice leaving a trail of blood

I spent almost a week on the east coast of Canada trying to observe the cull but at every step the local authorities did their best to stop me.

They consistently refused to issue the media and animal welfare campaigners with the necessary permits to observe the cull.

On Saturday afternoon, though, I finally managed to get hold of one (which has since been withdrawn).

Such obstructions are matched by the hostility of the sealers themselves, who have become increasingly aggressive towards independent observers.

On previous trips, Canadian fishermen have threatened me with knives, guns and hakapiks. Two years ago, when I visited the floes with a group of MEPs, we were involved in a high-speed car chase in which sealers repeatedly tried to force us off the road.

We were eventually forced to barricade ourselves into a hotel, where we remained for eight hours while officials from the European Commission and the U.S. embassy negotiated our release.

The authorities justify reporting restrictions by claiming that animal welfare campaigners and the media have consistently misrepresented the cull.

They claim that the images used to accompany reporting are, in some cases, decades out of date.

Loyola Sullivan, Canada's fisheries ambassador and head of the delegation to the EU, says: "We are not going to be bullied or blackmailed into forcing people who depend on the sealing industry out of their livelihoods using

baseless allegations."

Yet when I finally made it to the ice floes on Saturday, in a helicopter provided by the Humane Society of the United States, the carnage was every bit as horrific as the pictures suggest.

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Seconds from death: An unwary seal is inches from safety as a hunter sneaks up behind it

It's a goner: The hunter washes blood from the seal's lifeless body in the icy waters

Swathes of ice were drenched in blood. Piles of carcasses lay steaming in the sunshine. Fishing boats were off-loading men armed with hakapiks.

They fanned out across the ice, killing all that came within range.

Many of the fishing boats were pouring seal blood into the sea, turning it scarlet. Other sealers were casually tossing the skinned bodies of pups into the sea.

A few will have been cutting the hearts out of the baby seals ready to eat for breakfast - an age-old tradition

amongst sealers.

I witnessed dozens of seals being battered to death.

At "best" only one was killed in full accordance with the new regulations. About a quarter were tested for death before being skinned but we saw only one pup having its arteries sliced open and left to "bleed out".

Such scenes will be repeated hundreds of thousands of times over the coming weeks.

At least 275,000 baby seals will be killed so that their skins can be made into cheap fur coats, leather shoes and tacky trinkets.

The great tragedy of the slaughter is that it was stopped 25 years ago, following a ban on the import of seal pelts into the European Union - a ban that destroyed the economics of the industry.

But the Canadian government eventually found a loophole and ruthlessly exploited it.

Five years ago, the cull re-started with a vengeance when the authorities ordered the battering to death of a million baby seals.

I was there to watch the horror unfold - the first British journalist in a generation to document the cull.

Since then, another 1.5million baby seals have been slaughtered - almost one-third of the seal population.

Every year, British and European politicians have rushed to condemn the slaughter. Yet every year they have failed to take concrete action.

Now, at last, there is a glimmer of hope.

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No mercy: One of the hunters takes a swipe at a seal and manages to miss

Stavros Dimas, the EU's Commissioner for the Environment, said this week that the European Commission would soon propose an outright ban on the import of seal pelts.

"The Commissioner is very concerned at the inhumane way that baby seals are killed," said a spokeswoman. "Last year, we sent a team of expert observers. What the team saw did not alleviate the Commissioner's worries."

These may turn out to be just weasel words designed to ward off action for another year - but this time there is a sense that the end of the slaughter could be near.

Several countries have already taken independent action to ban seal pelt imports.

But our own Government is dithering, saying that ministers have "written again to Environment Commissioner Dimas and others reiterating UK support for an EU-wide ban".

British animal welfare campaigners are wary of such words.

Mark Glover, of the Humane Society International, says: "We've heard the same excuses for three or four years now. A European ban is crucial but the UK should also act on its own.

"We cannot see any reason why they won't do so.

"It's quite clear that the sealers are failing to adhere to the new regulations. It's the same old hunt we've seen in the past."

After witnessing the slaughter at close hand, it would be impossible to disagree.