A new campaign against the clubbing of seals in Namibia has sparked calls for a boycott of the country's tourism industry and products - including its famous beer.

Local celebrities are lending their voices to organisations Fur Free South Africa and Beauty Without Cruelty to "stop the massacre ".

"Seals of Nam" will be launched on Tuesday with celebrities, including singers Danny K, Cito and Louise Carver, as well as Mr South Africa, Denver Burns .

Fur Free SA chairman Anneke Brits said: "We are calling on people to boycott the Namibian tourism industry. We can't support Namibia, even though it is a neighbouring country, when it allows this horrific practice to continue. Let us hope that this pressure will make the leaders of Namibia realise the folly of what they are doing."

The practice , which Namibian authorities maintain is aimed at managing and protecting its fish stocks, takes place around July each year.

During that time, up to 100000 seal pups and bulls are killed at Cape Cross seal reserve, north of Henties Bay - a popular tourist area.

Burns said he would never "touch Windhoek Lager again and I won't visit Namibia until they stop this massacre. If we can put pressure on the Namibian companies and have an impact on their economy, those businesses can put pressure on the government to stop this."

Gideon Shilongo, Namibia Breweries spokesman, said while the company understood the need for sustainable management of natural resources, it was hard to defend the current "painful and cruel" method of seal culling.

But he urged those campaigning against the culling not to call for a boycott of Namibian products as this could have a "wide-ranging negative impact on our socio- economic quality of life".

Asked for comment this week, the spokesman for the Namibian Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Albert Mbanga, replied: "Why do you want to know? What business is it of yours?"

Businesswoman Jenna Clifford, who is involved in the campaign, said: "It's absolutely soulless what happens in that country. Could you imagine what someone like Angelina Jolie, whose child was born in Namibia, would say about something as inhumane as this? If we can do this to animals, to living beings, what does it say about us humans?"

Singer and songwriter Verity said:"I can't even watch it on YouTube. It's sick and cruel, and I will gladly support a boycott if it means putting an end to this sadistic act."

Francois Hugo, founder of Seal Alert SA, said he welcomed "any kind of pressure on Namibia to stop this massacre".

Environmentalist Patrick Dickens said the sealers in Namibia have annual quotas, adding that he discovered the cull scheduled for this year would result in about 85000 seal pups and 6000 bulls killed.

"For the next 139 days, terrified pups will be rounded up, separated from their mothers and violently beaten to death," he said. "The sand on the beach is stained pink from all the blood. Carcasses are thrown onto waiting vehicles, and the bulldozers come in to clean up the beach before the tourists arrive ."

The Namibian authorities have a contract with an Australian company, which buys the pelts and sells them to those who manufacture, among other things, fur coats.

Businessman Hatem Yavuz' s contract with the Namibian government runs until 2019. In an interview with a Turkish news agency in 2009, he defended his company saying: "Seal skins are especially popular in the Far East, and the millions of seals living on Namibia's coastline are harming the environment there."

He said that while adult male seals were killed with shotguns, the cubs were clubbed to death: "In order for them to feel less pain, they need to be killed with a club that has a nail in it."

Seal culling also takes place in Canada, while Russia's Vladimir Putin banned the culling in 2009, calling it a "bloody trade".

Although Canada is regarded as having the biggest culling, setting quotas as high as 330000 in 2010, actual figures declined.

SA banned seal culling in the early 1990s, and the import of seal products was banned by the European Union in 2009.