Behind the seal
The White Sea abounds in a sea beast. The hunter’s prey is often the white whale, the ringed seal, the sea hare. In the throat of the White Sea, it is sometimes possible to meet the sea giant, the walrus.
However, the most common species of pinnipeds of the White Sea is the harp seal or the White Sea lysun. The hunt for this beast is of great economic importance.
According to research conducted in recent years, the number of herds of seals is determined by several hundred thousand heads. Thanks to the protection, strict observance of the timing of hunting, the number of the herd of harp seals in the White Sea does not decrease.
Flocks of seals migrate seasonally into polar waters. Severe winter seascape. Dazzling white ice fields are carved with dark scour. Freakish ice heaps constantly change their forms, collapse and pile up again under the force of winds and turbulent White Sea currents.
But here in a narrow divorce a baleen face of a large animal appears. Behind him another, third. The seals protrude out loud from the water. They are unusually cleverly swimming along the edge of the ice floe and instantly disappear from sight.
In February, seals occur at sea more and more often. At this time, they can be found on the edges of ice floes. Getting out to the ice field, they lie for a long time under the rays of the mean northern sun.
The weight of an adult seal reaches 100 kilograms. His thick skin is covered with short, rigid hair, and under it is a layer of fat. The streamlined body shape, narrow elongated head, short strong flippers – all adapted to life in water. On the ice, the seal is clumsy and clumsy.
Utelga (female seal) brings one, rarely two, young.
The young seal spends whole days on the ice field. Nearby, at the edge of the floe holds and iron. A caring mother climbs on ice floes, looking after the offspring.
One by one and in groups, then on the smooth surface of the ice, then huddled under the hummocks, whitecoats settled on the haul. They grow quickly and come in weight. White as snow, wool makes them hardly noticeable on the background of an ice field. Only three black dots – the nose and two huge eyes from afar reveal their presence.
Several times a day Uelga feeds squirrel. Having found the cub in the haul, the car lies in front of him, turning its huge cigar-shaped carcass on its side.
No wonder so cares about the nutrition of the baby Utelga. Look at this handsome man: he is only five days old, and his weight has almost doubled. Now he weighs about 20 kilograms. The pile on his skin has become shiny, shiny and very durable. The undercoat is thick and soft as fluff.
Three weeks after the birth of a seal. Now it is a completely independent and strong sea beast. Less and less often visits him. Fluffy white fur falls out in pieces, replaced by a short coarse gray pile. It is not for nothing that hunter-hunters call “molting” or “serk” for nothing.
April … Grown up young seals. In search of food, they now almost all the time spend in the water. Rarely on the ice flocks can be found belkov. Adult seals remain in the hacks. There is a molt and mating season in the life of the seal. In June in the White Sea there are only a few specimens of the White Sea bald spell. Huge herds of this animal leave their native waters, changing them to the cold expanses of the Arctic seas.
Collective farmers, Pomors, inhabiting the shores of the White Sea, have long been famous as the brave hunters of the sea beast. Brigades of six to ten hunters from collective farms of the Mezensky District, from the villages of Yarenga, Dolgoschelie, Zolotitsa, Maida, and others reach ice-laying grounds for white bald spears on ice fasting and divorces. It is difficult and dangerous to hunt sea animals. Mining on drifting ice floes in storms and frost, with constantly changing currents of the sea, requires experience and courage. In recent years, hunting for seals from specially equipped bots adapted for navigation in ice conditions has become more and more widespread.
The first of March is the date for the start of hunting for the White Sea bald spear. Dozens of ships with hunters hunters rush into the White Sea. Hardly overcome the ice cliffs bots.