Results of 2008 inventory of grey seal in Finnish waters equal last year’s levels Early this summer more than 9,700 grey seals were counted in the seawaters of Finland. The main area of concentration was the south-western archipelago, where 8,300 grey seal were tallied.
For more information, contact:
Researcher Mervi Kunnasranta
tel: 040-5329496
Over 70% of the grey seal counted in the south-western archipelago were found in the waters around the Åland islands. In other Finnish sea waters, grey seals were clearly less populous. During the early summer moulting season, seals living in the Gulf of Bothnia can best be found in the protected nature reserve areas of the Quark and the Bothnian Sea. The largest seal populations counted in the Gulf of Finland were also observed in nature reserve areas there.
|
Sea area |
Grey seals counted in 2008 |
|
Åland islands |
5,913 |
|
Archipelago Sea |
2,395 |
|
Gulf of Bothnia |
972 |
|
Gulf of Finland |
460 |
Each year in late May – early June, the Game and Fisheries Research Institute of Finland takes inventory of the grey seal. Grey seals are easiest to count in the early summer when they are moulting, as they tend to group together on exposed islets. Counts only provide a so-called tracking value, as the smaller numbers of seals that are in the water at the time of the count are excluded. Seals are photographed from a plane in order to determine an exact population number. Flights encompass the entire archipelago belt within Finnish territory. Similar seal counts are carried out each summer in Sweden, Estonia and Russia. The grey seal count of the entire Baltic Sea can be estimated at the end of the year, when the counts from each country are combined. The grey seal count has grown in the last decade, and each year the count is larger.
The total count this year is roughly the same as in 2007, when 9,300 grey seal were spotted in Finland’s sea waters. The record high of 2006 (10,700 seals) remains unbroken. Although the counts can indicate changes in the overall grey seal stock, other factors can also contribute to count fluctuation, like weather conditions, the recognized mobility of seals, and chance. Long-term tracking is still useful in terms of showing the overall trend in grey seal stock size.
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