1,500 seal pups die in tidal surge

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1,500 seal pups die in tidal surge

Mothers had given birth on island instead of ice floes due to warm

weather

 

The Associated Press

Updated: 12:34 p.m. ET Feb. 3, 2006

OTTAWA - Around 1,500 seal pups were swept out to sea and drowned by

a tidal surge off Canada's east coast this week after a lack of ice

cover meant their mothers were forced to give birth on a small

island, environment officials said Friday.

 

A resident on the island described how the mother seals had

frantically tried to push their tiny pups back on to land as they

floundered in the storm-tossed water.

 

Gray seals in the Northumberland Strait — which lies between the

provinces of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island — usually give

birth on the pack ice which forms in winter.

 

But abnormally warm conditions this year mean there is no ice in the

strait, so some seals had to give birth on the beaches of Pictou

Island. Unusually high tides hit the island this week after a major

storm.

 

" The majority of those seals born above the high water mark have

been lost. We're estimating ... that of about 2,000 pups that were

born prior to the storm, we lost about 1,500, " said Jerry Conway, a

marine mammal adviser for the federal Fisheries and Oceans

Department.

 

Television pictures showed dead seal pups littered on one of Pictou

Island's beaches.

 

 

Resident describes frantic mothers

Jane MacDonald, one of the island's few permanent residents, said

the mother seals had tried hard to save their offspring. " The

mothers just push them and push them with their nose, and they dive

back under and push them back up, and they get back into the tide

wash, and then a big wave will hit and just sweep them back out to

sea, " she told CBC television.

 

Conway said it was not uncommon for seals in the Northumberland

Strait to give birth on land.

 

" I've been with the department 27 years and I can remember at least

half a dozen instances when there hasn't been ice of sufficient

strength (for seals to give birth there), " he told Reuters from

Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

 

When seal pups are born they weigh only about 20 pounds and have no

blubber, which means they find it hard to float.

 

Conway blamed the unusually high tide for the deaths,

adding: " Normally, these pups would have survived. "

 

The gray seal population in the Northumberland Strait and the Gulf

of St Lawrence is around 400,000 animals.

 

Conway said the lack of ice cover off Eastern Canada could also

cause problems for the large harp seal population, which usually

gives birth in late March near the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of

St. Lawrence.

 

" I'm suggesting that unless we have a tremendous decrease in

temperature and the forming of ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, we

may have a repeat of this with harp seals, " he said. This could mean

seals being forced to give birth on beaches on the Magdalen Islands

and Prince Edward Island.

 

Mothers usually birth on ice floes

The mother seals, which can grow as heavy as 800 pounds, normally

have their pups on the ice floes that clog the gulf.

 

Fisheries officials say they haven't seen so many seals onshore

since the early 1980s, when mild weather also hindered the formation

of the floes.

 

Female seals normally abandon their pups about three weeks after

birth, but the young remain out of the water for some time while

they shed their downy white coats.

 

Dave Phillips, a senior climatologist at Environment Canada, said

there have been weather anomalies across the country, with ice roads

not forming in northern Saskatchewan, Winnipeg getting unseasonable

rain in January and barren ski slopes in Vancouver.

 

Phillips said that while winters have been getting warmer over the

last several years, it isn't clear if this points to global warming.

 

And while most Canadians are enjoying the mild winter, there could

be a steep price to be paid in the months ahead, he said. Crops, for

example, could be hurt by a shock of warm and then cold weather.

Businesses that rely on winter activity are hurting, and several

remote northern communities have been cut off by a lack of ice.

 

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This

material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

© 2006 MSNBC.com

 

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11127975/