Why do harp seals eat snow

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Helena Visited places on St. All highlights. Home Highlights Harp Seal. Harp Seal These "saddlebacks" are historically known as true ice enthusiasts, visiting the land mainly for breeding and spending the bulk of their lives at sea Harp Seal cruises. Name : Harp seal or saddleback seal Pagophilus groenlandicus Length : 1.

How do harp seals hunt? Are harp seals social? What are harp seal mating rituals like? Adult — Male harp seals reach maturity at about seven years of age, females about five. How long do harp seals live? Harp Seals live about years in the wild. How many harp seals are there today?

Based on estimates from , there are about 4,, mature harp seals in the world. Do harp seals have any predators? Harp seals are prey for orcas, Greenland sharks, and Polar Bears. Mother harp seals can identify their own young out of the thousands of other pups in a colony by their scent. Although they live in cold water, harp seal pups are born without any protective fat.

Newborns quickly develop a thick layer of blubber while nursing. Harp seals, like all marine mammals, are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. NOAA Fisheries is committed to conserving and protecting harp seals. Our scientists and partners use a variety of innovative techniques to study, learn more about, and protect this species.

To manage harp seals in U. Based on the most recent survey, our scientists estimate that there are about 7 million seals in this stock. Learn more about our estimates for population size in our stock assessment reports. Harp seals are part of the true seal family. All true seals have short flippers, which they use to move in a caterpillar-like motion on land.

They do not have external ear flaps. Harp seals are about 5 to 6 feet long, weigh about to pounds, and have a robust body with a small, flat head. They have a narrow snout and eight pairs of teeth in both the upper and lower jaws. Their front flippers have thick, strong claws, while their back flippers have smaller, narrower claws. Adult harp seals have light gray fur with a black mask on their face and a curved black patch on their back.

Some animals have dark spots randomly scattered over their entire body. Adults molt, or shed, their fur every spring. Harp seal pups have long, wooly, white fur known as lanugo that lasts until about 3 to 4 weeks old. This white fur helps absorb sunlight and trap heat to keep the pups warm. Pups molt several times during their development. Harp seals gather on pack ice in large groups during breeding and molting seasons.

These groups can contain up to several thousand seals. Harp seals also feed and travel in large groups during seasonal migrations. They often travel away from the pack ice during the summer and follow the ice north to feed in the Arctic. Annual migrations can be more than 3, miles roundtrip.

Harp seals can dive up to 1, feet below the surface and remain underwater for about 16 minutes. They eat many more than species different types of fish and invertebrates. Some seals have been found with more than 65 species of fish and 70 species of invertebrates in their stomachs. Their most common type of prey is smaller fish such as capelin, Arctic cod, and polar cod.

The maximum lifespan of a harp seal is approximately 30 years. Males are sexually mature at seven to eight years of age and females at four to seven years of age. Females give birth from late February through mid-March.

They will only give birth during the short period of time when pack ice is available, as the ice provides a place to nurse their pups.

At birth, newborn harp seals weigh about 25 pounds and are about 3 feet long. They nurse on high-fat milk for about 12 days. During this time, they gain about 5 pounds per day and develop a thick blubber layer.

Harp seals wean when they reach around 80 pounds. After weaning, adult females leave their pups on the pack ice. The pups stay on the ice without eating for about six weeks. They can lose up to half of their body weight before they enter the water and start feeding on their own.

Commercial hunters have captured harp seals in Canada for meat and oil since the s. The Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans sets an annual total allowable catch for commercial, aboriginal, and personal use hunting. Hunting also occurred in Greenland. Harp seal mothers can distinguish their pups from hundreds of others by scent alone. Harp seals spend relatively little time on land and prefer to swim in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.

These sleek swimmers cruise the chilly waters and feed on fish and crustaceans. They can remain submerged for up to 15 minutes. Harp seals are sometimes called saddleback seals because of the dark, saddlelike marking on the back and sides of their light yellow or gray bodies. Both sexes return each year to breeding grounds in Newfoundland, the Greenland Sea, and the White Sea.

On this turf males fight for their mates, battling with sharp teeth and powerful flippers. When the mating ends, females gather in groups to give birth. Young harp seals are born on the ice, and mothers identify their own offspring from the multitudes by their smell. The young seals are famous for their snowy white coats. This fluffy fur is highly valued and has drawn hunters to the Newfoundland breeding grounds for two centuries. During the past several decades these grounds have become the scene of a human conflict between sealers and outraged environmentalists and animal rights activists.

Modern hunts are better regulated than in the past, but the harp seal remains perhaps the most commercially important seal, with hundreds of thousands killed each year. All rights reserved. Common Name: Harp Seal. Scientific Name: Pagophilus groenlandicus. Type: Mammals. Diet: Carnivore.