By Nikolai Pavlov
OVER THE WHITE
SEA, Russia (Reuters) - Warmer weather Sunday threw a lifeline
to hundreds of thousands of starving seals stranded on ice floes
in Russia's White Sea, increasing their chances of escaping to
areas with more food.
A scientist
who flew over vast stretches of melting ice with a Reuters television
crew said he was happy to see that grown-up seals had not abandoned
their babies and had taught them to feed on whatever the Arctic
waters had on offer.
"Maybe
a few of them will die but most of those we have seen today will
most probably survive," Vladimir Potelov, head of the sea
mammals laboratory of the Russian Polar Maritime Research Institute,
told Reuters.
As the helicopter
zoomed down on ice floes, all the seals scurried into the water
in a clumsy stampede which Potelov said showed they were fit and
sticking together.
"I have
not once seen grown-ups scuttle away and leave the young ones
behind. It is very encouraging," Potelov said.
He said crustacea
this year had moved closer to the surface than usual, supplementing
the pups' meager diet.
The changing
weather also seemed bound to halt plans by a regional shipping
company to send a boat to the White Sea to move the seals out
of the ice blockade.
Potelov said
the project for a crew of 20 to catch and load thousands of young
seals onto a ship to sail them to safety was unfeasible from the
start.
Potelov, along
with other scientists, earlier rang alarm bells for the fate of
300,000-400,000 pups in the White Sea as adverse winds blocked
their exit to the neighboring Barents Sea where food was more
plentiful.
Potelov said
half of the newborns could slowly die of starvation if the situation
persisted.
The seals
are usually born in the White Sea and the ice carries them northwards
into the bigger Barents Sea to grow to maturity. Strong winds
this year have kept the floes jammed.
A similar
catastrophe in the White Sea in 1966 killed about 300,000 seals,
about half of that year's newborn pups.
Every year,
Russia kills tens of thousands of Greenland seals in the White
Sea for their fur and oils.
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