After spending yesterday in the ocean learning about the gigantic – and creepy – Giant Squid, I thought we could use a nice, cute ocean animal. And to be honest, I really don’t think you will find an ocean animal that has cuter babies the Harp Seal. I mean just look at the picture above! Unlike our squid friend, this particular seal can only be found in the northernmost portions of the Atlantic Ocean and into the Arctic Ocean. This means that today’s trip out on the ocean waters, may be a little chillier so dress warm.

Hold Your Breath

The Harp Seal is a formidable swimmer and as such hardly spends any time on land. Instead, they prefer diving 300 m (1000 feet) below the ocean surface in search of tasty fish and crustaceans. These incredible animals are capable of remaining submerged for about 15 minutes. That is about 15 minutes longer than I am able to remain underwater…so quite impressive. So how are these seals able to withstand the cold of the Arctic Ocean? You may think it is their beautiful coat of fur that keeps them warm, and while this helps, most of their insulation comes from their large fat layer, famously known as blubber.

Violent Love

This particular marine mammal is known to live in a colony, also called a rookery, so if you have the privilege of seeing one seal….you will most likely see many more. These colonies grow much larger during the mating season when both genders return to their same mating grounds, year after year, located off the coast of Newfoundland, the Greenland Sea and the White Sea. These mating grounds can get pretty violent as the males will typically battle with each other for their piece of land. With sharp teeth and powerful flippers, these fights can escalate quite quickly. Adding to the violence is the fact that harvesting Harp Seal, while on their mating grounds, is an economically important activity. In fact, it very well could be the most commercially important seal on the planet, with hundreds of thousands seals being killed each year.

Harp Seal Fast Fact

The babies are born on the ice amongst the masses of all the seals. The mother uses scent in order to locate her newly born pup. I wonder how many new born mix-ups there are with the Harp Seal.