Most of Canada, well-known for its frosty and long winters, saw a mild winter this year, marked by record-breaking high temperatures across the country.
Meteorologists blame the unexpected retreat of cold Arctic air, which normally blankets much of the country in late December through March, allowing warm southern air to circulate.
The exception was Canada's Maritimes region where a blizzard dropped 55 centimeters (1.8 feet) of snow in just a few hours Thursday morning.
Jane MacDonald's husband is a fisherman who competes with the seals for fish. Both support government-sanctioned culls of harp seals — about 300,000 killed each March or April — but this was "a horrible way for (seals) to die," she said.
"It is disturbing to see their remains, a sea of furry white puppies replaced by carcass after carcass all along the beach," MacDonald said.
Fisheries officials noted that gray seals are not usually harvested, but they had planned to allow hunters to kill 2,100 in the coming weeks.
Those numbers are being reviewed in light of "this tragedy," Therien said.
Name: Gray Seal (
Halichoerus grypus)
Primary Classification: Phocidae (Seals)
Location: Both sides of the North Atlantic ocean and the Baltic Sea.
Habitat: Cold, open waters. Breeds on icebergs, ice shelves, sandbars, rocky coasts and isolated islands.
Diet: Mainly a wide variety of fish. Also squid, octopus and crustaceans.
Size: Males can grow to nearly 10 ft in length and 800 lbs in weight. Females are smaller.
Description: Dark gray with silver-gray markings to silver-gray with dark gray markings; males have a thick, wrinkled neck, thick shoulders and a long, broad, rounded snout; pups are born white with a yellowish tint.
Cool Facts: It can dive to 475 feet below the surface and remain submerged for up to 20 minutes. Pups grow rapidly, adding over three pounds per day until they're weaned at three weeks old.
Conservation Status: Common
