A video posted to social media shows the seal sunbathing on a floating dock in Laval, close to where the Mille Îles River joins the St. Lawrence River.

The survey started in 1971 as a review of commercially important fish like cod and halibut, but has grown into an annual scientific assessment of all sea life hauled up from the deep.

The Gulf of St. Lawrence has warmed and lost oxygen more rapidly than almost anywhere else in the Earth's oceanic waters due in part to climate change, raising the possibility that it could soon be unable to fully support marine life, according to a new study.