Harbor Seals

When I think of seals, I tend to think of slick grey animals that chill on the ice(get the pun) and sometimes are lunch for polar bears. It was not until a few years ago that I figured that is not the case, and seals actually can live in areas that are only a couple of miles from the desert. They steam on the sand(did that work?). Seals are quite diverse, and live in a variety of environments.

And one of these species is called the harbor seal, or Phoco Vitulina. This is a species that thrives in the chilly waters of northern/central California. And I fortunately got the opportunity to witness the pretty unique animals.

Before I move on to the more serious parts about the harbor seal, one thing needs to be established. While extremely graceful and strong in water, they have struggles while on land. I was watching a couple of them climbing up on land, and it looked like it was a lot of work. The seal would come out of the water, and then wriggle around trying to move until the next wave came in and pushed them a little farther up the beach. This kept happening till finally no more water could push them up. However, luckily at this point, enough seals are also sitting there that the incoming seals can use them to get a little higher up on the beach. It was pretty funny to watch. That being said, when watching them swimming it was completely different and you knew that the sea was their domain. When swimming, the seals were clearly all muscle and extremely graceful. 

After watching them for a while, I got to identify a couple of the seals and their pups. And I started to appreciate them a lot more. And when I read a signboard about the endangered status of the seals, and how different activities are endangering them.

Some of them are:

• incidental capture in fishing gear, including
  • gill nets
  • trawls
  • purse seines
  • weirs
• ship strikes
• oil spill exposure
• chemical contaminants
• power plant entrainment
• harassment by humans while hauled out on land

And the worst part was that most of it was avoidable and because of human error while in the pursuit of more wealth. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution. However, this experience was unique, and has definitely motivated me to be more aware of what is going on around me!