The Saimaa ringed seal is a protected, extremely endangered seal species. It is a subspecies of the Baltic ringed seal. For many people, the Saimaa ringed sealis a well known symbol of Finnish environmentalism.

The Saimaa ringed seal inhabits Lake Saimaa and some of the smaller lakes that surround it. The species became isolated from the Baltic ringed seal after the last ice age, when Saimaa became a lake as a result of post-glacial rebound.

Only about 380 ringed seals remain in Saimaa. Because seals reproduce and grow slowly, the population will continue to decrease as a result of the problems caused by human activity. The number of reproducing seals is low, whereas the mortality rate of their pups is relatively high. The most common cause of death for ringed seal pups is getting caught in fishing nets. In addition, increasingly warm winters mean that the seals cannot dig snow caves where the young pups are protected from the cold. 

The Saimaa ringed seal is also an example of an endemic relic species. This means that the Saimaa ringed seal occurs only in a specific geographic area and that its current area of distribution is only a partial relic of a previous, larger area of distribution.