HARP SEAL (Phoca groenlandica)

RANGE: North Atlantic and Arctic oceans.

The harp seal is perhaps the best-known ice seal because of the large-scale commercial hunt in Canada, Norway, Russia and Greenland that still kills hundreds of thousands of harp seals each spring. Harp seal females give birth on the pack ice to snowy white pups in February and March. During a brief 12-day nursing period, the pup rapidly plumps up to more than triple its birth weight and is then left to fend for itself. For the next two months, the sea ice provides a dry, safe haven for resting while the pup learns to swim and find food on its own. During this energetically stressful period, the pup loses half its body weight. Rapid reductions in sea ice combined with violent storms and early sea-ice breakup pose a serious threat to pup survival. [1] Shrinking sea ice makes it more difficult for females to find stable sea-ice floes for giving birth, and stressed females may be forced to abort their pups if they cannot find suitable ice. Early sea-ice breakup is leading to high pup mortality when pups are prematurely separated from their mothers before the end of nursing. Even after weaning, pups need sea ice for resting while they learn independence, and the disappearance of sea ice during this crucial period jeopardizes their survival. In the poor ice year of 2010, many harp seal pups died off the Canadian coast by being separated from their mothers, drowning after slipping off shrinking ice floes and being crushed by moving ice. Pups born on beaches or shore ice were killed by coyotes and bald eagles. Despite the disastrous breeding season, Canada increased its quota for the harp seal cull to 330,000 animals in 2010.