Animal rights group PETA is using World of Warcraft to launch a new propaganda campaign against Canadian seal hunters.

The campaign draws a parallel between the in-game slaughter of seals by Horde characters and the real-life hunting of seals in Canada.

"Thrall refused to ban the slaughter of seals, despite multiple requests from the Alliance to do so, because Orgrimmar stands to make a large profit from the fur," writes PETA on its blog.

To stop the seal slaughter, the group is of course staging a violent assault on the game's seal-populated Howling Fjord zone. A short piece of machinima was also produced to get the word out:

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Apparently overlooking the "Chicken Kicker" achievement in Lionhead's Fable II, animal rights group PETA has recognized the title as its game of the year.

"Fable II is a vegetarian's dream come true," writes PETA in its GOTY. "In this virtual fight between good and evil, characters powered by tofu are just as powerful as their meat-eating counterparts--and are more fit and attractive to boot."

"Featuring a strong pro-vegetarian theme, eating a plant-based diet helps you rack up 'purity' points, whereas eating meat makes your character fat and evil. A fun and innovative game, it's also an effective tool that teaches gamers the real-life benefits of a vegetarian diet."

PETA is no stranger to the gaming industry of late. The organization recently forced Sega to pull Samba de Amigo ads that featured trained chimps, and in November produced a Flash-based version of Cooking Mama subtitled "Mama Kills Animals."

Outcry from animal rights organization PETA has caused Sega to remove chimpanzee-starring advertisements from its official site, with the organization declaring that it is "officially bananas about Sega" and sending the game publisher vegan chocolates.

PETA took issue with Sega's use of a real-life chimpanzee in various ads for Gearbox's maraca-shaking music game Samba de Amigo, which hit Wii in September. In the game, players take control of a smiling, big-eyed monkey.

However, despite their supposed removal from all things Sega, the chimp-starring Samba video advertisements are still available for download on Sega's press FTP.

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According to PETA, the process went something like this:

We explained how involuntary chimpanzee 'actors' are taken away from their mothers when they are just a year or so old and forced to perform confusing and repetitious tricks. We also explained... Read more