All washed up: Seal pup one of thousands stranded on Canadian beach due to record ice shortage

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1260639/All-washed-Seal-pup-thousands-stranded-Canadian-beach-record-ice-shortage.html

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 4:44 PM on 25th March 2010

Stranded on a beach all alone, this starving harp seal pup faces a bleak and, most likely, short future.

The pup is one of tens of thousands who have washed up on beaches in Canada's Gulf Of St Lawrence during the worst ice conditions ever recorded in the region.

Thousands are presumed dead because the gulf, which is the annual birthing ground of hundreds of thousands of harp seals, is currently lacking both ice and seals.


Stranded: A starving harp seal pup washed up on the shore of Prince Edward Island in the Gulf Of St Lawrence


The pup struggles to clamber up on what ice it can find on the beach

Many more thousands of seals are expected to die this year, the International Fund For Animal Welfare (IFAW) has warned.

Sheryl Fink, a senior researcher with IFAW, said: 'The conditions this year are disastrous for seal pups. I've surveyed this region for nine years and have never seen anything like this.

'There is wide open water instead of the usual ice floes, and rather than the hundreds of thousands of seal pups that we normally encounter, only a handful of baby harp and hooded seals - animals that are normally found on ice - remain on the beaches.'


Threat: Tens of thousands of seals are expected to die in the region this year, the International Fund For Animal Welfare IFAW has warned

This year is expected to yield another especially high harp seal pup mortality rate, following on from 2007 when 99 per cent and 75 per cent of pups are thought to have died in similar circumstances, and 2002's 75 per cent mortality rate.

FULL story at link.

[sailor65]

1. Geez, talk about the wrong damned beach

for a seal pup to be stranded on :-(

[KittyWampus]

2. Good bye seals, and polar bears and penguins.

Breaks my heart.

[bdamomma]

3. poor things didn't ask for this

man made catastrophe

[Oregone]

4. Looks cute in a pitiful way

Im going to go scour my beach and look for one

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Omaha Steve.

[Omaha Steve]

6. Kick