Actress Pamela Anderson has requested a meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to discuss Canada’s seal hunt, adding her name to the growing list of celebrities who speak out against the annual hunt, which just got under way.

The opening days of Canada’s East Coast seal hunt were fraught with frustration, bad tempers and violent acts on the rapidly thinning ice of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Sealers took to the thawing ice floes off the Atlantic Ocean today, the first day of Canada’s contentious seal hunt, which animal rights activist claim is barbaric and not economically worth the bad publicity.

Paul McCartney and his wife Heather Mills-McCartney will travel to the ice floes off the Canadian Maritimes this week to observe seal pups before the country’s annual hunt opens, the Humane Society of the US said yesterday.