Finding seal pups

There's a hot season among pilots in the end of February and in the beginning of March, since hundreds of tourists come to Arkhangelsk to see yet another wonder of the Baltic Sea newborn Greenland seal pups, named white-coat seals.

Greenland seals dwell in seas of the Arctic Ocean. In Russia they spend summer near the Barents and Kara Seas and give birth to posterity alongside the White Sea. More precisely put, near the place so-called Funnel and Throat straits. 300-350 thousand seals are born annually alongside the White Sea. Research results for the past years show that the amount of these animals reached one million heads. In the begging of the life, newborn pups go through different stages of development, they are even called in different ways. By the way, the names are borrowed by scientists from fishermen pomors* . At birth seal pup is very slim like a spindle with moss cover and weights around 7 kilograms. It's called “zelenets” because of slight green tint of skin. A seal cow nurses a pup every three hours. It's a hard work for mother's organism, since a cow practically doesn't left out and uses stored reserves accumulated in summer. For twenty-four hours of such a nourishing diet newborn gains almost two kilos in weight! Their fur become fluffy and white. You can view these charming snow-white animals with big eyes in our TV channel. *Pomors are Russian settlers and their descendants on the White Sea coast Russia summer Barents and Kara Seas White Sea aerial photographs.