The seal population has increased from about 4,000, considered nearly extinct, in the late 1980s to about 50,000.Lithuania will make a concerted effort to save its grey seal population, which has managed to stabilise though continues to remain vulnerable, in the Baltic Sea as it contends with shrinking fish stocks, pollution and the negative effect of climate change.
Over the years, Lithuania has introduced several bans, including on toxic pesticide usage and commercial cod fishing, in an effort to fortify its grey seal population.
The effects of climate change on the seals’ habitat are severe, as the Baltic Sea, which is shared by the European Union and Russia, rarely freezes over now, depriving the seals of sanctuaries to rear their cubs.
“Mothers are forced to breed on land in high concentration with other seals,” said Vaida Surviliene, a scientist at Lithuania’s Vilnius University told the AFP news agency. “They are unable to recognise their cubs and often leave them because of it,” she said.
Survival rates for cubs in the wild can be as low as 5 percent, according to local scientists.
Rearing cubs ashore also leaves mother seals exposed to humans, other wild animals, rowdy males, as well as a higher risk of diseases, according to Arunas Grusas, a biologist at the Baltic Sea Animal Rehabilitation Centre in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda.
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