Dead Saimaa ringed seal pup found in Lappeenranta

A dead Saimaa ringed seal pup was found in Lappeenranta on Monday, according to Finland’s state forest management agency Metsähallitus.

The male pup, born this spring, was discovered by a passerby near the shore of Greater Saimaa, trapped inside an unattended fishing trap with a wide gape. The trap had no owner identification.

Riikka Alakoski, a biodiversity specialist at Metsähallitus, noted that wind patterns suggest the trap may have drifted from a restricted area about five kilometres away. Fishing with traps or nets exceeding 150 millimetres in gape is banned year-round in the seal’s core habitats.

This is the eighth fishing-related death of a Saimaa ringed seal reported this year. The previous case, a female pup entangled in a fishing net, was recorded just a week earlier. Over the past decade, Metsähallitus has recorded an average of six such deaths annually.