Puumala: The calm and cold waters of Lake Saimaa Finland are a gift for fishermen and tourists, but their presence also threatens one of the rarest and most threatened seals in the world.
Even though he saw the numbers recovered in the past few decades, Saimaa Ring Seal still faces extinction amid climate change and fishing habits die-hard.
Out in Saimaa, dark and slum gray creatures appear and destroy the surface in the Finnish lake district, close to the Russian border.
“That’s Eeva, he doesn’t swim away because we’ve known each other for almost 30 years,” Risto Eronen’s smile, a retirees who have been overseeing the seal, which is only found in freshwater lake.
“He is Saimaa’s old woman and has given birth to 10 puppies in her life,” he told AFP on the ship just a few meters.
The population of ‘Saimporpppa’, because mammals were called in Finland, reaching 400 years which was four times more than in the 1980s when expected to die completely.
But this is still close enough to ensure the survival of subspecies, the campaigner said.
“Lightweight Winters caused by climate change has made their lives harder,” When sea dogs need ice and snow to build a marital floor, Kaarina Tinen from the Finnish association for natural conservation (SLL) explained.
But the most acute danger for seals, according to campaigners, is fishing Vendace, small appeal, and summer delights with four to eight dying sea dogs captured on the net.
In mid-June, all sea dogs have left rocky breeding spots for the depth of the lake, except EEVA, which prefers the surface and is recognized by its unusual skin.
“Most likely it was because hooks fished in his throat,” said Eronen.
“He was caught on the same line and the same spring began to make a sound of grossing” and spent longer on the surface taking oxygen.
Most of the 4,400 square kilometers Saimaa were covered by net-fishing restrictions, but the government refused to update them at the end of June, preferring voluntary arrangements.
Charging in net fishing has produced opposite resistance at a tourist hotspot decorated with 50,000 summer cottages and which attracts more than a million stays overnight a year before the pandemic.
“Fishing Vendace with a web is a way of life for many people here,” said Teemu Himanen, whose local association issued 980 licenses of fishing last year only for one part of Saimaa.
“People chew at the slightest to be able to start net-fishing again in July,” he said, adding that many people felt the threat of sea dogs was exaggerated.
“If the net is tethered correctly down, the seal can easily avoid being caught in it, even if it takes fish from it.” To compensate for the end of the net ban, SLL and volunteers have built 100 safe seal-seal traps with Green Wire Mesh, to distribute for free.
On Saturday Saturday June in Koikkala Village, 100 male and female fishing fans queued in the tent to sign the declaration that they would provide net fishing, before being given a free trap.
The initiative’s popularity is a sign that “the desire to protect the ring seal has increased sharply” in recent years, Tienni conservationist said.
Himanen welcomed moving but added: “I don’t believe you will completely get rid of the net in Saimaa.” You can’t catch the same number in the trap.
“This year the Finnish authority bid for its habitat from Saimaa’s ring seal can be distinguished from a typical white circle on its fur which will be added to the UNESCO world heritage list.
Subspesies have been classified as ‘endangered’ by Finnish and EU authorities, and polls show The majority of Finland supports more stringent laws to protect animals.
Like the fate of the seal, more people want to come to the region to see the animal itself, so there is a constant equalization, “Tinen said.
and as a number Saimennorppa grows, appears when to calm the protection steps.
“When there are only 300 seals they say we need control on the net to get up to 400.
But now we have passed 400 and the conversation still hasn’t stopped,” Wearen Notes.
Government want it to reach “the appropriate level of protection” without settling There are numbers, but for the Pamual, the population must be at least a thousand or two before the protection can be relaxed.
“But we may never be in a situation where it is not threatened and requires protection,” Tinen said.