This can be beneficial to the animals, as they may be more likely to get acquainted with the sea early on and not get "beached" as has happened in milder winters, but on the other hand, members of the public out walking on or near the sea ice should be careful: Mother seals, like many other species, are highly protective of their young. Caution should be exercised, especially when walking the dog.

"With dogs, the issue is that dogs may attack them, or the seal itself may attack the dog. It can quite easily attack a person as well if someone gets too close," Alina Kuznetsov, a volunteer with the Estonian Wildlife Association (Eesti Metsloomaühing), told "Aktuaalne kaamera."

Seal expert Mart Jüssi is asking the public to report where seals have been seen, while saying people should not rush in to get close to a seal or to take "selfies" with it if they see one.

"It protects its offspring and territory and is actually extremely dangerous to a person who approaches. I do not recommend doing that – even if it is very cute – going to pet them or take selfies, for example. Those jaws snap very quickly and those holes [the teeth would make] are generally very large and painful," Jüssi explained.

"I speak from experience," he added.

A safer way of getting close to the animals is through a seal monitoring camera set up, which gives a glimpse into the lives of the grey seals during their calving period, which in a mild winter can lead to as many as 5,000 births – yet in a colder winter like the current one the figure can be twice as high.

The final number will not become clear until spring, however, when the animals come out onto the rocks to moult and can be more easily observed.

In fact, ice conditions, while not ideal for humans, are very much so for this particular species, particularly when giving birth.

"This is one of the best places in the Baltic Sea to give birth to pups. Seals are Arctic animals – ice and snow animals – and here in our region, at our latitude between Estonia and Gotland, is usually where the Baltic Sea ice boundary runs. Further north the ice is just a bit too harsh and further south there is almost none," Jüssi said.

Over the past couple of decades, a slight increase in grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) numbers in Estonia has been seen. Again, the mild winters seen in recent years, this year excepted, have stopped the growth from being bigger still.

"As it demands a higher 'tax' – a 'warmth tax'. The survival rate of pups is lower and the pups are in poorer health, so there is growth, but it is not as strong as it could be," Jüssi said.

As for the rest of winter, Jüssi said if "the ice remains until April, then a large share of those pups will have become sea creatures, dropping into the water quite far from the shore, and that may somewhat ease the situation compared with past years when there was no ice and those seals were stuck on the coast or on the beaches," Jüssi added.

Fishermen are one demographic with perhaps reason to be pleased with the modest growth.

Herki Tuus, head of the fisheries department at the Ministry of Regional Development and Agriculture, said last year that there were an estimated 7,000 grey seals in Estonian waters, with the population growing as noted. Tuus added seals consume around 9,000 tonnes of fish per year, a figure almost comparable with the annual fishing haul in Estonia's waters, of around 12,000 tonnes.

Estonia has, together with Finland and Sweden, sought permission from the European Commission to sell seal products derived from culling within the EU.

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