The hunt is Canada is tightly regulated and sealers can loosing their license and face charges for breaking the laws.
The vast majority of seals are shot not killed with the hakipik.
It is illegal to skin a seal alive, new regulations have come into place to insure the animal is dead.
Vets have even held voluntary workshops for sealers on the new regulations and quick humane methods to kill seals. It has been estimated that so far a third of the sealers have attended these workshops. Many consider this as proof there that these are not barbaric killers.