The Harp Seal: Adapting Behavioral Ecology to a Pack-Ice Environment

The harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus) is the most abundant pinniped in the northern hemisphere, with an estimated total of 9.5 million animals. Commercially exploited since the eighteenth century, there is a large historical body of ecological knowledge that has provided insights into environmental factors that affect this species’ behavioral dynamics. Often referred to as the ice-loving seal from Greenland, harp seals breed and rest in spring on the drifting pack ice at the southern limits of their range, then migrate northwards to summer at the edge of the Arctic polar ice pack. Harp seals are gregarious during the breeding season. Ice-based research opportunities have provided insights into how harp seals locate conspecifics, care for their young, and how young transition from a ‘terrestrial’ to a marine environment. Fine-scale observations of animals outside of the breeding season have been more limited as animals disperse over hundreds of kilometers to the north of the breeding areas to molt and then feed. Nonetheless, the deployment of biologgers, working with seal hunters, and multidisciplinary studies have provided insights into factors affecting productivity and how environmental factors such as climate change may impact harp seals in the longer term.