Two federal ministers demanded on Monday that Paul Watson apologize for comparing the cull of hundreds of trapped narwhal to a war crime and step down as leader of the Sea Shepherd Society.

In an online commentary late last month about the killing of 600 narwhals trapped in the ice near the Nunavut community of Pond Inlet, Watson "crossed the line beyond reasonable dissent," said Fisheries Minister Gail Shea and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, the MP for Nunavut, in a news release Monday.

"The offensive commentary written by Mr. Watson equates this humane harvest with the killing of civilians during the Vietnam War. It represents an invective against Inuit that has nothing to do with conservationist principles," they said.

Watson should not only apologize, but he should retract these "deeply hurtful" remarks, they said.

The comments are "proof that Mr. Watson's leadership as president of a conservationist movement should end immediately," they said.

In his commentary, Watson called the narwhal hunt one of the "most savage and disgraceful crimes against nature imaginable."

He condemned the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for approving the hunt and then failing to supervise it. He also questioned why icebreakers were not used to free the whales instead of killing them.

"To the Inuit it was like shooting fish in a barrel — literally," wrote Watson. "And the Inuit were quite happy to pull the triggers. Narwhal tusks sell for thousands of dollars and this bonanza was four times their allowed legal kill."

Watson said the hunt was a "bloody massacre" where "Inuit killers roared and laughed barbarously as they inflicted torturous death upon these gentle creatures."

The hunt started in November shortly after the whales were discovered near Pond Inlet, a community of 1,300 on the northern end of Baffin Island.

The nearest icebreaker would have taken days to reach the site.

The Inuit said that since the whales were going to die anyways, they should hunt them so they did not go to waste.