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Seal finger, also known as sealer's finger and spekkfinger (from the Norwegian for "blubber"), [2] is an infection that afflicts the fingers of seal hunters and other people who handle seals, as a result of bites or contact with exposed seal bones; [citation needed] it has also been contracted by exposure to untreated seal pelts.
Seal meat hanging to dry on St. Lawrence Island. The study showed significant differences in nutritional composition from one seal to another. This may have been due to the highly varied age and size of the seals tested. In general, both the meat and blubber can be considered to be high quality food in terms of bioactive components and nutrients.
Blubber under the seal's skin helps to maintain body temperature. Females outlive males (30–35 years versus 20–25 years). Harbor seals stick to familiar resting spots or haulout sites, generally rocky areas (although ice, sand, and mud may also be used) where they are protected from adverse weather conditions and predation, near a foraging ...
Baikal seals have one unusual foraging habit. In early autumn, before the entire lake freezes over, they migrate to bays and coves and hunt Kessler's sculpin, a fish that lives in silty areas and, as a result, usually contains grit and silt in its digestive system. This grit scours the seals' gastrointestinal tracts and expels parasites. [5]
Elephant seals are shielded from extreme cold more by their blubber than by fur. Their hair and outer layers of skin molt in large patches. The skin has to be regrown by blood vessels reaching through the blubber. When molting occurs, the seal is susceptible to the cold, and must rest on land, in a safe place called a "haul out". Northern males ...
The fur seal yields a valuable fur; the hair seal has no fur, but oil can be obtained from its fat and leather from its hide. [9] Seals have been used for their pelts, their flesh, and their fat, which was often used as lamp fuel, lubricants, cooking oil, a constituent of soap, the liquid base for red ochre paint, and for processing materials such as leather and jute.
Seals produce a number of vocalizations, notably the barks of California sea lions, the gong-like calls of walruses and the complex songs of Weddell seals. The meat, blubber and skin of pinnipeds have traditionally been used by indigenous peoples of the Arctic. Seals have been depicted in various cultures worldwide.
The fuel is seal-oil or blubber, and the lamp is made of soapstone. [5] A qulliq is lit with a stick called a taqqut. This characteristic type of oil lamp provided warmth and light in the harsh Arctic environment where there was no wood and where the sparse inhabitants relied almost entirely on seal oil or on whale blubber. This lamp was the ...