"There is a very clear increase that has happened since the 1970s, when they were very threatened: but thanks to protection the population has started to recover again," Olavi Stenman, a scientist with the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute, told AFP.

At the end of the 1970s the seal population in the Baltic Sea had dwindled to around 15,000 as a result of intensive hunting and polluting chemicals which caused deformations in the female ring seals' reproductive organs, he said.

A ban on seal hunting was introduced in the late 1970s, and that, together with the prohibition of the toxic pollutants, has enabled stocks now to reach almost 20,000, most of which are found in Finnish waters, Stenman said.

Around 13,000 of them are grey seals and more than 5,000 are ring seals, he said.

In 1997, the population was considered healthy enough to sustain hunting again, and licences for 30 animals were issued.

This figure has since been gradually increased, with 230 licences issued last year. However, only some 100 seals were actually killed, because of the small number of hunters, Stenman noted.

For this season, the quota has again been raised, to 400, but probably only 150 seals are likely to be hunted, he said.

In neighbouring Sweden, which also borders the Baltic, the 2003 quota is for 170 seals.

The seal hunt is highly controversial, with environmentalists lobbying for a new hunting ban.

But as the seals increasingly damage fishing nets and feed on fish stocks, the Finnish government has decided to continue to allow hunting.

TERRA.WIRE