40 Fun Facts About Harbor Seals

Hoover, a harbor seal at Boston's New England Aquarium, became famous for which unusual talent?

Imitating human speech made Hoover a star: he barked out greetings in the gruff New England accent of the man who raised him as a pup. None of his six pups ever copied him.

Harbor seals often rest with head and rear flippers raised, a pose nicknamed after which fruit?

A banana curve is the classic resting pose of the species, seen on rocks, beaches and even on ice drifting in northern fjords.

In the 1994 family film Andre, about a real harbor seal, which kind of animal played the title role?

A sea lion named Tory took the part. The real Andre spent some 25 years alongside the harbormaster who raised him.

A young harbor seal that became a London celebrity on the River Thames in 2021 was named after which singer?

Freddie Mercury the seal drew crowds near Hammersmith Bridge, far upriver from the sea, in a river once written off as ecologically dead.

A harbor seal with one cloudy eye became Friday Harbor's official seal under which cartoon character's name?

Popeye was named the Port of Friday Harbor's official seal in 2005, a pun the Washington marina marked with a granite sculpture of her.

In experiments, harbor seals tracked the wake of a miniature submarine using which sensitive body part?

Their whiskers can follow the trail a swimming fish leaves behind, much as a dog follows a scent, even in dark or murky seas.

Where does a tired newborn harbor seal pup sometimes hitch a ride while swimming at sea?

On its mother's back is where a weary pup rests, though it can swim from birth and dive for two minutes when only a few days old.

Off California, which large fish joins the killer whale as a top predator of harbor seals?

The great white shark and the orca are the harbor seal's main ocean predators, one reason the seals rest ashore in groups, where each animal spends less time on watch.

What mainly keeps a harbor seal warm in cold seas?

Blubber insulates so well that a harbor seal's skin stays only about one degree Celsius warmer than the sea around it.

When a harbor seal pup is found alone on a beach, what is its mother most likely doing?

Feeding nearby is the usual answer, so a lone pup is rarely an orphan. Crowding it can scare the mother away for good, which is why walkers are asked to keep their distance.

Which feature, seen on every fur seal, does a harbor seal lack, a quick way to tell the two apart?

Ear flaps mark the eared seals; true seals such as the harbor seal have only a small opening on each side of the head.

Fused pelvic bones stop harbor seals from walking, so their wriggle across a beach is likened to which animal?

A caterpillar is the usual comparison: the seal ripples forward on its belly because it cannot tuck its hind limbs under its body. The motion is normal, not a sign of injury.

Besides fish, squid and crabs, harbor seals have been recorded killing and eating several kinds of which birds?

Ducks of several kinds have fallen prey to harbor seals, though fish such as herring, cod and flatfish make up most meals.

Harbor seals will swim over a hundred miles up large rivers in pursuit of shad and which other migratory fish?

Salmon runs draw harbor seals far inland, which is why the animals sometimes turn up in rivers and even in lakes.

Harbor seals do not chew, so how do they usually eat a small fish they have caught?

Swallow it whole is the rule for small prey, while a bigger catch is torn into chunks first. An adult gets through roughly 10 to 18 pounds a day.

Which part of the United Kingdom is home to the vast majority of the country's harbor seals?

Scotland holds most of Britain's harbor seals, and in the 19th century their skins were made there into jackets, boots and sporrans.

Andre, a harbor seal honored with a statue beside the harbor in Rockport, lived in which US state?

Maine's town of Rockport unveiled its statue of Andre in 1978, eight years before the seal died.

Robbins Reef off New Jersey, once a resting place for harbor seals, takes its name from which language's word for seal?

Dutch settlers of the 1600s named the ridge for the animals that lay on it at low tide, using their word rob.

A sheltered beach built for children in 1931 has been taken over by harbor seals in which California city?

San Diego's Children's Pool in La Jolla was a gift from Ellen Browning Scripps. Seals moved in during the 1990s, and after years in court the colony was allowed to stay.

Harbor seals spend winters on tiny Hoffman and Swinburne Islands, within sight of which American city's skyline?

New York lost its seals to hunting and pollution, but they returned as the harbor grew cleaner, and a park ranger has likened the city to their Miami resort.

The nostrils of a harbor seal, set on a short dog-like snout, form which distinctive letter shape?

V-shaped nostrils, a rounded head and a short muzzle help watchers tell a harbor seal from the longer-nosed gray seal.

The harbor seal's usual name in Britain and Ireland swaps the word harbor for which adjective?

Common seal is a misleading label in Britain, where the larger grey seal is far more numerous.

The endangered Ungava seal, a harbor seal subspecies found only in freshwater lakes, lives in which Canadian province?

Quebec's Ungava seals are thought to descend from animals cut off from the sea as the ice sheets retreated thousands of years ago, and very few remain.

About half of the rich milk a harbor seal mother feeds her pup is made up of what?

Fat makes up roughly half the milk, so a pup can roughly double its birth weight in about a month before it is weaned.

Although harbor seal pups are born ashore, where do the adults court and mate?

In the water is where harbor seals mate: in the breeding season each male holds a small underwater territory and roars to advertise himself.

What do biologists call it when a harbor seal leaves the sea to rest on rocks or a beach?

Hauling out takes up about half of a Pacific harbor seal's life: time ashore is for warming up, resting, giving birth and nursing.

Researchers can tell individual harbor seals apart because which feature is unique to every animal?

Its spot pattern works like a fingerprint and comes in two styles: dark flecks on a pale coat, or pale rings on a dark one.

Among all the world's pinnipeds, the group that includes walruses, the harbor seal holds which record?

Widest distribution fits an animal found on the coasts of North America, Europe and Asia, from Mexico's Baja California to beyond 78 degrees north.

Which 1972 US law made it a federal offense to kill or harass a harbor seal?

The Marine Mammal Protection Act covers every seal, whale and dolphin in US seas, and many harbor seal populations have grown since it passed.

Until 1960, several US states paid bounty hunters to kill harbor seals because the animals were blamed for what?

Competing with fishermen for the catch made harbor seals a target in five states, and numbers recovered in many places once the bounties stopped.

The virus that killed about 18,000 European harbor seals in 1988 is named after which disease of dogs?

Distemper in seals is caused by phocine distemper virus, which was unknown to science until that outbreak and struck the North Sea coast again in 2002.

Iron deposits on the hair are thought to tint some San Francisco Bay harbor seals which unusual shade?

Red or rusty coats turn up on many of the bay's seals, sometimes over the entire body and sometimes on the head alone.

Harbor seals often sleep at the surface with the body submerged and only the head exposed, a posture known as what?

Bottling keeps the nostrils in the air while the body hangs below. Harbor seals can also sleep fully submerged, rising to breathe about every half hour.

Harbor seal muscle holds about ten times as much of which oxygen-storing protein as our own muscle does?

Myoglobin stores oxygen inside the muscles themselves, which helps a harbor seal stay under for up to half an hour on one breath.

What happens to a harbor seal's heartbeat when the animal dives, a change that helps it save oxygen?

It slows down dramatically, from as many as 120 beats a minute at the surface to as few as four to six during a dive.

Harbor seals live surrounded by salt water, so where do they get most of the fresh water their bodies need?

From their food comes the moisture they need, and when meals are scarce a seal's body makes more by burning its own reserves.

Where does a harbor seal pup usually shed its fluffy, whitish first coat, known as lanugo?

In the womb is where the baby coat normally comes off, so a pup still wearing it has usually been born early.

The harbor seal's scientific name, Phoca vitulina, likens the animal to which young farm animal?

A calf is what vitulina points to: the Latin word means calf-like, and sea calf is an old English name for the species.

The world's northernmost harbor seals live around which Norwegian islands, well inside the Arctic Circle?

Svalbard's seals keep mostly to the west coast of one island, Prins Karls Forland, and stay there all year.

Soon after the breeding season, harbor seals spend many extra hours a day ashore while doing what?

Molting replaces the sea-worn coat; at California's Point Reyes, seals then rest ashore about 12 hours a day, up from about 7 in fall and winter.