HARP SEALS

FUN FACTS

• Grow to be about 5 to 6 feet long and about 300 to 400 pounds
• It feeds on fish and krill
• They dance to get a mate
• Predators include polar bears, orcas, sharks, and sometimes walruses
• Its habitat is it follows ice as it recedes North to summer feeding grounds

HABITAT

• Harp seals require a stable ice platform, in which they give birth on and nurse their pups
• When stable ice cannot be found, they give birth in the water and their pups can die
• The pups can be separated from their moms and crushed by the ice

FOOD CHAIN

• Ice loss has caused a decrease in algae, plankton, and krill. Which are the foundation of the food chain
• This will end up affecting food chains everywhere for the harp seals

LOCATION

• In 2007 Canada had one of the worst ice conditions, it was practically devoid of ice and seals
• Some harp seals have started breeding off East Greenland, others continue to go to their traditional breeding
• grounds in the Gulf of St. Lawrence

SURVIVAL

• We can stop hunting them
• We can protect the locations of where they give birth

PROGNOSIS

• We can end up losing the species as a whole

WHY WE SHOULD CARE

• They are victims of the largest slaughter of marine animals