Critically Endangered Saimaa Ringed Seal Saved by Humans Piling Snow

Human intervention isn't always a bad thing, and that's especially true when it comes to the Saimaa ringed seal. Scientists have found that humans can help the critically endangered seal cope with climate change.

In Finland, Lake Saimaa is home to the critically endangered subspecies of the ringed seal, called the Saimaa ringed seal. This species is heavily ice-associated, and its breeding success depends on sufficient ice and snow cover. The loss of snow and ice caused by the ongoing climate change poses a direct threat to the subspecies, and climate changed induced changes to the environment may also have indirect effects.

While the effects of human activity on the seal population can be detrimental, a novel conservation method can help the seal population cope with climate change.

So what is this new method? People can create manmade snowdrifts, which have been proven to be successful in improving seals' breeding success during winters with poor snow conditions. These snowdrifts are designed to mimic wind-drifted snow and they were piled using shovels and pushers at seals' lair sites before the breeding season.

So how does this help the seals? The drifts create a type of snow lair for the seals for the breeding season. A snow lair provides good shelter for seal pups as they're still nursing.

Creating snowdrifts could be huge for the survival of these seals. More specifically, this technique may help with ongoing climate change in order to help seal recover population numbers.

The findings are published in the journal Marine Mammal Science.

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