Photographer Spent 3 Years Trying To Get His First Shot Of Seals On Ice, Until He Met This Pup…

Alexey Trofimov spent 3 years trying to get his first shoot of seals on the ice, as these cute animals are really shy, cautious, and difficult to photograph. “If a seal pup is not too scared, they will begin to become curious about you and this is what this seal was doing,” Trofimov told Caters News. When the photographer finally managed to get closer to the baby seal near Lake Baikal in Russia, “It was a very rare and special moment.”

While the furry seal baby is the definition of cute, the way they are treated by humans is something of a horror story. For instance, each year in Canada, hudreds of thousands of baby seals are shot or bludgeoned to death. Hunters use metal-hook-tipped clubs and boat hooks to drag half-conscious seals across the ice.

Sealers then leave the dying animals to rot on the ice floes, because they can’t make money off seal meal.