According to scientists, Findland's Saimaa seal is under threat by fishing nets and climate change affecting their habitat.

The seal lives only in Finland's biggest lake, Lake Saimaa, in the eastern part of the country. It is a subspecies of the ringed seal that became a fresh water mammal some 9 500 years ago when ice melted after the ice age and it became trapped in the lake.

It has suffered from man's actions, in the form of pollution in the 1960s and the 1970s, and more recently from warmer winters and fishing.

Calving seals use snow to build a protective lair on the ice for their pups, which are born at the end of February or in early March.

"During the last three winters the ice and snow have come late or the snow has melted early, so seals have not been able to build lairs and the pups have remained without the protection of a lair," Jari Luukkonen, conservation director at WWF Finland, said.

This has resulted in many cubs dying soon after birth and the population has started to fall...