What Am I?

I am a Harp seal, from a group of animals called pinnipeds, which means “fin-feet”. My scientific name means Greenland seal because of where some seals live. As a grown up seal, I am gray and have a dark shape on my back that looks like a harp. This is why I am called a “harp seal”.

When I am a newborn harp seal, I have beautiful white fur and am called a “whitecoat”. After only a few weeks, my fur becomes gray. I have a thick layer of fat that keeps my body warm. I can dive very deep in the water, usually to 300 feet (100 meters), but one harp seal dove to almost 900 feet (274 meters) deep!

Where do I live?

There are three main places where I live. Male/boy and female/girl harp seals migrate (travel) each year to 1) Newfoundland, Canada, 2) to the Greenland Sea between Greenland and Norway, and 3) to the White Sea in Northern Russia. The females have their babies (“whitecoats”) on the ice that floats on top of the cold ocean water. The females come out of the water to feed us, as babies, and then go back into the water to swim. When we are old enough, we join our mothers in the water and learn how to swim and feed ourselves.

What do I eat?

I eat krill and shrimp, and open-sea fish like polar and Arctic cod, herring, capelin and halibut.

How long do I live?

I can live to be 30 years old or more.

When I am born, I weigh around 22 pounds (9.97 kilograms). But since my mothers’ milk is very rich in butterfat, as a baby seal pup, I grow very fast. In only two weeks, I will grow to weigh between 88-100 pounds (40-45 kilograms!). That’s over 4 times bigger than when I was born!