Seals Love Good Company

What should you do if you find a 
baby seal on the beach?

       Seals are strange animals to those people, who see them only in circuses juggling colored balls on their noses or in the zoos where they watch them swimming gracefully about in their tanks.

       Alaskan natives and other peoples of cold countries, know a great deal about seals, as they spend much time in hunting them. From the skins of the seals they make clothing, bags, covers for kayaks and other useful articles. The meat and blubber they eat.

       Seals are ocean animals, particularly of the colder parts. Their feet are paddle-like flippers, they have a thick coat of hair which protects them from the icy water and under the skin is a layer of fat, called “blubber” which helps to keep them warm.

       On land hair seals are very clumsy, wriggling or “humping” along with their bodies almost flat on the ground. Once they slip into the water they can float on the surface, dive to the bottom or chase fish in the depths with great speed and skill, and they can remain under water for as much as twenty minutes at a time. Fish, squids and cuttle-fish are caught and eaten.

       Seals like company and are usually found in large groups, called “herds”. On bright days they like to sun themselves, lying with their heads toward the water. The heads and faces of seals look quite human. Probably many of the stories of mermaids and sea-nymphs are founded on tales of seals.

       In the spring, seals gather at their rookeries. The males are called “bulls” and the females “cows”. The bulls reach the rookeries first and each chooses a small area for his own. When the cows arrive, they are kept together and guarded on this ground by the bull. His group is called a “harem”.

       It is here the babies, called “pups” are born and tenderly cared for by the mothers. Each mother knows her own baby and when she returns from the sea, after a search for food, she has no trouble finding her own pup among hundreds of others. The youngsters do not like to go into deep water at first as they cannot swim, and have to be taught by the adults. Once they learn, they spend a great deal of their time playing and frolicking in the water and along the shore.

       Seals are divided into two groups, Eared Seals and True or Earless Seals. Eared Seals have long necks, small ears and hind flippers that can be turned forward to help them walk on land. They swim with their front flippers, the back flippers being used as rudders. To this group belong the Fur Seals and Sea Lions.

       Fur Seals are also called Sea Bears. These are the seals whose skins are made into the handsome furs. The largest herd is historically found on the Pribilof Islands, near Alaska and is owned and protected by the United States Government. The young males only are killed for their fur until 1984. Now the killing of any seals there is against the law.

       Sea Lions are very large seals. The roar of the male and fold of skin on the neck, resembling a lion’s mane, gives the name. They are hunted for the hides and oil obtained from their blubber. Sea Lions were used and trained to do tricks in circuses once-upon-a-time, but now this only happens at places like Seaworld during shows.

       True or Earless Seals have no external ears, very short necks, hind flippers stretched backward and a coat of short bristly hair. In swimming the hind flippers are used.

       The largest and strangest of all seals are the Elephant Seals or Sea Elephants. They are great clumsy beasts. They get their name from their snouts which somewhat resemble short trunks. The only herd found near the United States is on Guadalupe Island, southwest of California. Pearsall.

PBS Terra - How baby seals grow up.