The Arctic is the area around the Earth's North Pole. The Arctic includes parts of Russia, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Lapland and Svalbard as well as the Arctic Ocean. It is an ocean, but it is always covered with ice. (Harvey, 2017) This is a region characterised by stressful conditions as a result of extreme cold, low precipitation, a limited growing season (50–90 days) and virtually no sunlight throughout the winter. Life in the planet?s polar regions can be incredibly difficult. Bitterly cold winds whip across the landscape. Winter temperatures can reach deep into the negatives, and the winter night can last for months. But these seemingly barren landscapes are home to a rich diversity of wildlife—both on land and under the sea surface—that has evolved to survive these harsh conditions. (Carrington, 2017)

One such animal that has adapted to survive in the arctic is the ringed seal. The Saimaa Ringed Seal (Pusa hispida saimensis) is one of the rarest seals in the world. Only around 380 seals remain in Lake Saimaa, Finland currently. They are found in all the Arctic seas and in the North Pacific as far south as Japan.

Ringed seals are part of the "true seal" family Phocidae. It is the smallest and most common seal in the Arctic. They have a small head, short cat-like snout, and a plump body. Their coat is dark with silver rings on their back and sides with a silver belly. Their small foreflippers have thick, strong claws that are used to maintain breathing holes through up to 6 ft of thick ice. Ringed seals eat a wide variety of small prey that consists of 72 species of fish and invertebrates. Feeding is usually a solitary behavior and their prey of choice includes mysids, shrimp, arctic cod, and herring.

In the early 20th century, we believe there might have been as many as 1,000 Saimaa ringed seals. The number declined due to hunting, and by the start of the 1980s, there were fewer than 120 individuals left. With climatic warming, all subspecies were negatively impacted by continuing decreases of ice habitats that were critical for their reproduction.

The ringed seals were mainly put to threat because of climate change, industrial development, pollution and local disturbances, and their impacts are gradually increasing. Humans were mostly responsible for climate change in this area because of industrial development that cause pollution. Pollution is defined as the presence of a substance which has harmful or poisonous effects on the environment.

This activity indirectly affects the arctic region because factories and industrial developments made emit various harmful gases into the atmosphere, mainly carbon dioxide and methane. These are very dangerous greenhouse gases and contribute to the greenhouse effect. In this process these gases accumulate in the atmosphere and absorb the heat entering the earth as well as the heat produced at the surface of the earth. As a result, global temperatures rise significantly, directly leading to melting of polar ice caps in several areas, the Arctic being a major one.

The most visible changes in the Arctic are those to the physical environment, including warming temperatures, the loss of sea ice and an increasing collective footprint from industrial activities. The resulting ecological impacts are often much harder to see. Yet these changes are important to consider now, since impacts being felt today may take years or decades to show their full effect.

The world has seen many examples of long-term ecological damage due to increasing human activity. While these threats to the population of ringed seals can be very disturbing, we still have an opportunity to act before it is too late. We can take various measures to conserve and sustain the numbers of the runged seal.

Thanks to the active conservation work set in motion by WWF in 1979, the Saimaa ringed seal population has increased, now covering approximately 360 animals. There is still plenty of work to be done to protect this species that remains on the verge of extinction.

In my opinion loads can be done to conserve the numbers of this particular species. But if I had to pick one effective solution to this issue it would be creating breeding programs. This will be beneficial as most programs can maintain genetic diversity within populations over several generations. Scientists will genetically breed a single ringed seal and duplicate more of them. This will be a comparatively easier option to conserve the low numbers of the species.

Even though this solution can definitely help resolve the issue at hand, it can leads to major negative impacts economically and ethically. Genetic breeding of species is not something everyone is usually recommends as it is often stated as ?highly unethical? because animals are being produced through unnatural means. These can leads to various misconceptions socially due to diverse cultures and beliefs. Another issue that rises from this, is the monetary impact of breeding. Genetic breeding is in fact one of the most expensive processes used to breed endangered flora and fauna to sustain their numbers. Even though using this process will significantly pose an impact on the numbers of the seal, scientists might not be able to afford to produce many of these species.