Pamela Anderson, seen in Toronto in October 2009, hugs a seal mascot as she launches an anti-sealing campaign. (Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)

Actress Pamela Anderson is trying a new approach in her fight to stop Canada's seal hunt, hoping to enlist public support by appealing to taxpayers' wallets.

The Canadian-born celebrity, famous for her role as a bikini-clad lifeguard on the 1990s TV series Baywatch, has filed a series of access to information requests in an effort to prove how much the seal hunt costs the government.

"We're wasting millions of tax dollars every year to prop up the violent, dying seal slaughter," Anderson wrote Tuesday in an email to The Canadian Press.

"It's no longer an issue of concern just for animal advocates but for any Canadian disgusted by government waste. And for the many Canadians who travel abroad, like me, it's a huge embarrassment."

Anderson filed three access requests on Monday with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

Fisheries Minister Gail Shea said that while the Canadian sealing industry is not overly profitable right now, the government continues to seek new opportunities for marketing seal products, including clothes, oils and meat.

In January, Shea travelled to China to explore that country as a potential new market.

Shea insisted the government spends less on promoting the sealing industry than the sealers earn. A spokesman for her department could not immediately provide figures on overall expenditures related to the sealing industry.

Anderson has been a vocal opponent of the seal hunt. In February, she sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper urging him to end it.