Ongoing conservation efforts aimed at replenishing Finland's Saimaa ringed seal population have reaped dividends once again, with wildlife agency Metsähallitus revealing that a record number of seals were born this spring.
According to the agency's figures, a total of 111 Saimaa ringed seal pups were born in the first half of 2025.
The conservation programme — which yielded a previous-record high number of births in 2023 — involves Metsähallitus experts working alongside volunteers from WWF Finland to make the Saimaa region as optimal as possible for the seals' breeding season.
Artificial snowdrifts crucial as winters warm
This includes the building of hundreds of so-called 'artificial snowdrifts', which help to protect pups against predators as well as the cold in the crucial first few weeks after birth.
According to Metsähallitus, about 80 percent of this year's pups were born in these purpose-built snowdrifts, as a milder winter meant far fewer natural snowdrifts were formed.
Miina Auttila, a Senior Specialist in Nature Conservation at Metsähallitus, noted that the nesting mortality rate this year was also much lower than originally feared, with fewer than 20 pups dying.
"Of course, the observed mortality rate is higher than when there are good nesting conditions, but significantly lower than it would have been without the artificial snowdrifts," Auttila said, citing the mild winter of 2020 as an example.
The building of snowdrifts that year proved to be very challenging due to a lack of snow, and as a result more than a quarter of the pups died.
"In a good breeding year, the mortality rate is about 10 percent," Auttila said.
