A controversial new business that makes sausages out of seals on Russia's Pacific coast has prompted an outcry, with more than 160,000 people signing a petition in protest.

While commercial seal hunting has been on the decline in the West after decades of animal rights campaigns, an entrepreneur in the Magadan region believes it's an “empty niche” ripe to be exploited.

In response, thousands of Russians have spoken out to insist that “seals are not sausage”.

The government of the remote region announced last month that a private company had killed 137 seals to produce sausage, which it dubbed “Kolyma know-how” in reference to Magadan's Stalin-era name, when the area was infamous for brutal gulag work camps.

“Such food wasn't produced even in Soviet times. The meat of captured animals went for feed at farms raising Arctic foxes and mink,” it said in a statement seeking to drum up investment.

“But according to dietitians, seal meat possesses not only a good taste, but also nutritional value.”

The entrepreneur behind the venture, Vasily Borisov, told Magadan media that his company produced 10,000 cans of spotted seal meat as well as seal fat and seal bacon in 2018.