There are many animals out there that are heavily affected by climate change. Even though this is something the world is aware of, it starts to hit people harder when they actually see footage of these animals struggling to survive.
C4News shared a video on its TikTok page of a diver helping out a scared harp seal cub as it clings to her, the ice around it melting. The diver, Jennifer Hayes, explains, “It clambered up on me. It’s clinging for life on my chest. I got alongside of a piece of ice, and I let it clamber out on its own when it had eventually rested.”
After the diver's statement, the video shows a clip of an adorable poofy white harp seal. After seeing and hearing the adorable sounds that it makes, it breaks my heart that these babies are in danger.
These seals require ice to survive, so with their habitat melting around them, their lives become more in danger every day. Jennifer, a Marine biologist and photojournalist, explains, “Here we are in 2023 and we’ve run out of time. We’ve run out of ice.”
Quebec’s Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence become a nursery for the seals every winter. Around 100,000 harp seals migrate there just to give birth. Unfortunately, these “ancient pupping grounds” are facing collapse from the climate crisis.
Jennifer explains that if the ice forms late or if the ice doesn’t form at all, it’s a recipe for disaster. The video then explains how the climate models show that sea ice will become rare in the future.
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Per the TikTok, 2020 was the last documented time that it was possible to see the seals nursing on sea ice. Jennifer says, “The Gulf of Saint Lawrence is this microcosm. To me, it’s almost like looking at this scaled-down model of climate change. The face of this climate change being the harp deal pup.”
I have been aware of climate change for many years, but being able to view the reality of climate change and what it is doing to these poor animals is a true eye-opener.
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