Harbor Seal (Phoca vitulina)

Harbor Seal overview

The harbor seal, known as the common seal in Europe, is the most widely distributed of all seals and sea lions, living along cold and temperate coasts throughout the Northern Hemisphere. It is a true, or earless, seal: it has no external ear flaps, swims with its hind flippers, and moves on land by hunching along on its belly. Each animal has its own pattern of spots on a coat that varies from silver-gray to brown or nearly black. The rounded head and V-shaped nostrils give it a dog-like face. Harbor seals haul out on rocks, sandbars and ice to rest, molt and give birth, and usually stay close to home.

How Long Do Harbor Seals Live?

Harbor seals live about 25–30 years in the wild. Females outlive males, typically reaching 30–35 years against 20–25 for males, probably because of the stress of competing for mates. In zoos and aquariums they often pass 30, and the record is about 47 years.

How Much Does a Harbor Seal Weigh?

Adult harbor seals weigh 55–170 kg (120–375 lb), and males are somewhat heavier than females. Weight changes with the seasons, since seals build up blubber before breeding and molting and lose it afterward. Alaskan and Japanese harbor seals tend to be the largest.

How Long Is a Harbor Seal?

Harbor seals are 1.5–1.9 m (4.9–6.2 ft) long. Males average slightly longer than females, but the difference is small compared with sea lions or elephant seals. Pups are 75–100 cm long at birth and weigh 8–12 kg.

How Fast Can a Harbor Seal Swim?

Harbor seals can swim at about 19 km/h (12 mph) in short bursts, but they usually cruise at a fraction of that speed. They are built for diving rather than sprinting. On land they are slow and awkward, because they cannot rotate their hind flippers forward to walk.

How Long Is a Harbor Seal Pregnant?

A harbor seal's pregnancy lasts about 9–11 months in total, including a delay of roughly two months before the embryo implants and begins to grow. The single pup can swim within hours of birth, nurses on very rich milk for only four to six weeks and then fends for itself.

What Do Harbor Seals Eat?

Harbor seals are carnivores that eat mainly fish, plus squid, octopus and crustaceans. They take whatever is common locally, from herring and cod to salmon and flatfish. They hunt alone, detecting prey with their sensitive whiskers, and can dive deeper than 400 m, though most dives are shallow and short.

Diet type: carnivore. Whatever fish are locally abundant, such as herring, cod, hake, sand lance, flatfish, salmon and rockfish, along with squid, octopus, shrimp and crabs; adults eat roughly 5 percent of their body weight daily.

Where Do Harbor Seals Live?

Harbor seals live in coastal waters of the North Atlantic and North Pacific, seldom more than a few tens of kilometers from shore. They use bays, estuaries, rocky islets, sandbars, mudflats and glacial ice as haul-out sites, and a few populations live in freshwater lakes in Canada and Alaska.

Are Harbor Seals Endangered?

The harbor seal is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, with a world population estimated at 350,000–500,000. Trends differ by region: many populations are stable or growing, while some in Alaska, Scotland and elsewhere have declined. Outbreaks of phocine distemper virus killed tens of thousands in Europe in 1988 and 2002.

Least Concern

Harbor Seal fun facts

• A harbor seal's whiskers can follow the faint water trail left by a swimming fish more than 30 seconds after it has passed.
• Pups are usually born having already shed their white baby coat in the womb, so they can swim within hours.
• Harbor seals can dive deeper than 400 m (1,300 ft) and hold their breath for close to 30 minutes, slowing the heart to a few beats per minute.
• Resting seals often lift their head and hind flippers into a curved banana pose to keep them dry and warm.
• A harbor seal named Hoover, raised by a family in Maine, learned to mimic human phrases in a gruff New England accent.

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Harbor Seal FAQ

Related animals

All mammals