When you walk on sea ice, it’s easy to forget that there’s an ocean
below you. This frozen world is stripped down to essentials:
impossibly blue sky, bright sun bouncing off a blanket of fresh
snow, wind that vibrates like a cello, whiteness all around.
Then I hear the distant chorus of infant cries and stand still
for some time, listening. It’s a precious moment that I want to
appreciate fully before I pull out my cameras. I catch a slight
movement in a ridge of snow ahead of me—a gentle and clumsy
wave of a tiny flipper. I see a pup nestled inside a small snow cave
molded by body heat and movement, protected from the wind.
Its coloring is still tinged with a hint of yellow from amniotic
fluid. When it turns, I can see its thick pink placenta.
I choose a spot a polite distance away and kneel in the snow,
watching and waiting, making a note of the date: March 8, 2019.
I hear sloshing water and short grunting breaths before I see
a whiskered face with big dark eyes rise and survey the sur-
roundings from a nearby hole in the ice. The female emerges,
using curved claws to pull herself onto and across the ice to her
pup. They meet with a nose-to-nose kiss of recognition that
establishes kinship: Are you my pup? Are you my mother? The
female turns to gauge my presence, determines I am no threat,
and settles onto her side, shuts her eyes, and begins to nurse.
Welcome to the harp seal nursery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence
off the Magdalen Islands (Îles-de-la-Madeleine), Québec, one of
two Northwest Atlantic harp seal whelping grounds. Adult seals
migrate here from the Arctic, the pregnant females searching for
suitable ice on which to give birth. Harp seals are an ice-obligate
species; they require a stable sea platform of ice for pups to
survive. Born on the ice in late February and early March, the
pups nurse for 12-15 days before being left on their own. The
young seals are among the most captivating creatures on the
planet, with obsidian eyes, charcoal noses, and cloud-soft fur.
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