Baltic Ringed Seal

On the road to recovery

The Baltic ringed seal (Phoca hispida botnica) is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). By the 1970s, hunting and pollution had reduced the total population to about 2,000, but back in the 1900s there may have been as many as 200,000 ringed seals in the Baltic. Populations are currently increasing by about 5% annually, despite continuing problems with uterine occlusion affecting both younger and older females. Recent surveys indicate that there are about 4,000 ringed seals in the Gulf of Bothnia, 200-300 in the Gulf of Finland and about 1,400 in the Gulf of Riga. The species is also found in the eastern Baltic Proper, and in small numbers in the Archipelago Sea.

	Two freshwater Baltic ringed seal subspecies have been isolated in Finland's Lake Saimaa and Russia's Lake Ladoga since post-glacial land uplift reduced the extent of the Baltic Sea about 8,000 years ago.