Where will the seal pups be born this year?
Text: Ivar Jüssi
Screencap: Kuremari from forum
Translation: Liis
The winter this year is colder even than the many-year average, let alone the last mud ski winters, and there is enough ice for the grey seals in their favourite places for giving birth. These favourite places aren’t the patches of dry land, where - lacking ice - we are used to see them, but larger sea areas with suitable drift-ice. One such area is the western coast of Saaremaa. The first pups are born in the first February week; the top period is the second half of February, the Candle Month. Whether any pups will be born on our monitored island, and whether we will see them in the camera can’t be predicted yet. Some seals may certainly give birth on the island; from their point of view it is like a large block of drift-ice. The area of the islet is at least five times larger than usual: ice that has become firmly attached to the bottom because of the low water level has extended the surface considerably.
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