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A weaned harp seal pup. Harp seal births are rapid, with recorded lengths as short as 15 seconds in duration. [18] In order to cope with the shock of a rapid change in environmental temperature and undeveloped blubber layers, the pup relies on solar heating, and behavioral responses such as shivering or seeking warmth in the shade or even water ...
Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. Seal hunting is currently practiced in nine countries: Canada, Denmark (in self-governing Greenland only), Russia, the United States (above the Arctic Circle in Alaska), Namibia, Estonia, Norway, Finland and Sweden. Most of the world's seal hunting takes place in Canada ...
After six to seven weeks, pups are weaned and begin to hunt independently. [8] Weddell seal pup with its grey natal coat, Deception Island. Weddell seals show moderate polygyny and genetic analyses of mating success have suggested how factors such as size, diving ability, and site-specific experience enhance success in male Weddell seals. [23]
Sunlight and seawater cause the dark gray to become brown and the light silver to become yellow-brown, while long periods of time spent in the water can also promote algae growth, giving many seals a green tinge. The juvenile coat of the monk seal, manifest in a molt by the time a pup is weaned is silver-gray; pups are born with black pelage.
The tiny baby sea pup, named Kiwi, is being cared for at the seal centre with a view toward returning him to the wild when he is weaned. He was found abandoned on a beach with no mother nearby.
Grey seal pups are precocial, with mothers returning to the sea to forage once pups are weaned. Pups also undergo a post-weaning fast before leaving the land and learning to swim. [37] Within a month or so they shed the pup fur, grow dense waterproof adult fur, and leave for the sea to learn to fish for themselves.
The Juan Fernandez fur seal has a particularly long feeding cycle, with about 12 days of foraging and feeding and 5 days of nursing. Most fur seals continue this cycle for about 9 months until they wean their pup. The exception to this is the Antarctic fur seal, which has a feeding cycle that lasts only 4 months.
Southern elephant seal (just weaned pup): first bath. Satellite tracking revealed the seals spend very little time on the surface, usually a few minutes for breathing. They dive repeatedly, each time for more than 20 minutes, to hunt their prey—squid and fish—at depths of 400 to 1,000 m (1,300 to 3,300 ft). They are the deepest diving air ...