Saturday 5 May 2012

Fluffy, white and cute

In March, I was attending the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research on a seal monitoring project of one of the most remote seal populations in Europe. The West Ice east of Greenland is for a few weeks each year dotted with harp- and hooded seals crawling up on the ice to give birth. It is both a fantastic and priveleged experience to jump from ice floe to ice floe between thousands of seals knowing that if the ice breaks or one miss judgement of falling into the crack between the ice floes and there is 1600 meters down to the bottom of the sea...Here is some harp seal (grønlandsel) pictures from the trip.

Only a few hours old, still drying off the blood from the birth.


One mistake of jumping, and 1600 meter to the bottom of the freezing ocean.






   -EG-