Smoked seal meat has gone on sale in eastern Russia, prompting an outcry from animal lovers who have demanded that its sale be outlawed.
The sausages are made by a private company in the Magadan region of Russia, some 3,600 miles from Moscow.
It has been reported that about 140 seals have been shot or clubbed to death to make the controversial product.
The flesh of the animal is being used to produce seal paté and a 'Spam-like chopped meat'.
“Seal meat not only tastes good, it is healthy — it is low-calorie and is high in nutritional value,” authorities in Magadan said.
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Vasily Borisov, an entrepreneur behind the private venture, has defended its production and said his company produced 10,000 cans of spotted seal meat last year.
But the resulting outcry has resulted in a petition to the Russian President Vladimir Putin to block its sale which has been branded "primitive and amoral".
“There is absolutely no need to kill seals, which are highly developed mammals, for food,” said Olga Salnikova, founder of the Change.org petition.
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Over 160,00 people have put their name to the appeal and have insisted that "seals are not sausages."
Ilya Volodin, a zoologist, said: “It’s senseless to make sausage from seals because it’s cheaper and easier to make it from cows."
