Fauna Journal Entry
Stranded Russian Seals are Starving (May 11, 2001)
Seal cub photo by International Fund for Animal Welfare. Courtesy Seal Conservation Society.
Two-hundred thousand seal cubs are stranded on ice floes in the White Sea in northern Russia. The seals became trapped after strong winds kept them from reaching their normal feeding grounds in the Barents Sea. The seals are not adapted for survival in the White Sea. One Russian scientist warns that they are at risk of starvation.
Each year, mature seals move south to the White Sea to breed. The seal cubs then drift north on ice floes to feed in the Barents Sea. But strong northeasterly winds have slowed their movement this year.
A similar disaster happened in 1966, when an estimated 300,000 baby seals died of starvation on floes in the region.
