The annual Canadian seal hunt has been called of briefly after four hunters drowned when their trawler capsised.
Families of the four hunters who were killed say the Coast Guard is responsible for their deaths.
Captain Bruno Bourque and crewmen Gilles Leblanc and Marc-Andre Deraspe
drowned when their boat, L'Acadien II capsised while being towed back to port by the coast guard.
Of the six crew aboard, two were pulled from the icy water by a nearby fishing boat.
The bodies of three of the deceased were recovered from the water but a fourth member of the crew, Carl Aucoin, is still missing presumed dead.
L'Acadien II sent an SOS message to the coast guard after losing its rudder.
But witnesses said the coast guard were towing the stranded vessel too quickly and failed to notice when the trawler ran into ice and flipped.
Damien Derapse, Mr Aucoin's brother-in-law, said the coast guard botched the rescue attempt
"The coast guard sunk them. There was always risks but this wasn't a hunting accident, it was a towing accident," he told The Star newspaper.
The mayor of the Quebec town where the men came from told The Star their families deserved an explanation.
"There is an anger among friends of the victims about the result of the coast guard's rescue operation.
"The men were under the coast guard's responsibility."
The search for Mr Aucoin has ended, with the coast guard saying “all hope had diminished for his survival”.
The seal hunt has been called off temporarily, out of respect for the dead and the growing danger from ice near the hunting grounds.
Around 1000 of the annual limit of 275 000 harp seals have been killed so far.
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