High number of seal pups reported on Baltic seacoast this spring

RIGA, March 21 (Xinhua) -- This spring, people in Latvia have been reporting numerous sightings of seal pups resting on the Baltic seacoast, local media reported on Wednesday.

Environmental experts have advised people not to approach the baby seals and to avoid walking dogs on the beaches where seals have been seen coming ashore.

It is thought that the arrival of such an unusually high number of seal pups on Latvia's northwestern seacoast has been due to the movement of ice in the Baltic Sea. Since seal pups spend the first weeks of their lives on ice, it is highly likely that drifting ice floes have brought them from Estonia's shores to Latvia.

Already last weekend, reports appeared on social networks that dozens of seal pups had been seen on drifting ice off Latvia's northwestern port city of Ventspils.

A change of wind triggered an ice drift in the Baltic sea this week, sending large floes moving from Latvia's western coast to the central part of the Gulf of Riga. This means that very soon, seal pups can be expected to appear not only on the beaches in Ventspils area but also elsewhere on Latvia's Baltic seacoast, environmental experts informed.

Representatives of the Nature Conservation Agency of Latvia said that the arrival of such a large number of seals on Latvia's seacoast is a quite rare, once-in-a-decade phenomenon. Enditem