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Bookmark or Share- Edge of the Arctic Shelf - Woods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionBearded and ringed seals spend their entire lives in the Arctic. Hooded and harp seals spend summers in the Arctic, and harbor seals only occasionally venture north into the Arctic. The bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus) is the largest arctic seal, and bears the closest similarity to walrus. They are bottom feeders and have prominent whiskers.
- Scientists and fishermen team up to film seals in fishing netsThe research has strengthened WHOI’s already good working relationship with the local fishing community, and study results should help identify patterns in the seals’ behavior—such as favorite feeding times—that could enable fishers to minimize interactions between seals and gillnets in the future.
- Melting Ice Threatens Polar Bears’ SurvivalSimply put, if there isn’t enough sea ice, seals can’t haul out on the ice, and polar bears can’t continue to hunt. In each of the first three years of the USGS surveys, the near-shore ice melted an average of about 100 days, and the Southern Beaufort Sea polar bear population grew about 5 percent per year.
- The value of iron for a seal - Woods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionThe seals’ whiskers act as a sort of dietary timeline, incorporating molecular signatures from various food sources as they grow. Using a technique called stable isotope analysis, the researchers can identify different signatures in a seal’s whiskers and match them to potential prey items.
- Weddell seals in the Antarctic strategically time their most extreme ...Weddell seals in Erebus Bay, Antarctica, may look like couch potatoes when they are resting on ice. However, these seals, which are the southernmost population of the southernmost living mammals, are exceptional divers that can reach depths of more than 900 meters and recorded dives lasting 96 minutes, which is well beyond their aerobic threshold.
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