The Davis Strait - DCE - Nationalt Center for Miljø og Energi

Sensitivity: Non-whelping hooded seals are not particularly sensitive to oil
spills and disturbance. Hooded seals can be affected by oil spills in the same
way as all other seals (i.e. tissue damage and poisoning).
Important and critical areas: The whelping area in Davis Strait is particularly
sensitive to disturbance and pollution during the whelping/breeding season
in March-April.
Harp seal, Pagophilus groenlandica
Distribution and numbers: Harp seals are migratory seals. The vast majority of
the seals from the West Atlantic population concentrate around the whelping
areas off Newfoundland in February-April. They give birth on the drift
ice in March and they moult in April. After the moult they spread out in the
waters between Greenland and Canada and some seals move up along the
Greenland east coast (Fig. 4.8.4).
The number of harp seals in the assessment area increases throughout the
summer and early autumn, but when the sea ice starts to form they initiate
the migration back toward the whelping areas off Newfoundland. Most
adult harp seals during summer forage in pods typically consisting of 5–20
individuals. Juvenile seals forage alone, but all ages feed mainly on capelin
(Mallotus villosus) in the inshore part of the assessment area and on sand
lance (Ammodytes spp.) on the Store Hellefiskebanke and probably in other
off shore areas too (Kapel 1991) (Kapel 1991)and unpublished data from the
Greenland Institute of Natural Resources).
The West Atlantic population that whelps on the ice off Newfoundland in
early March is estimated to have increased from around 1.8 million in the
early 1970s to about 7-8 million individuals in 2010 (Hammill & Stenson
2010 ). The proportion of seals that enter or pass through the assessment area
is unknown and probably also variable, but it might be as high as 50%. The
number of seals in the area at any given time is, however, significantly lower.
Their number is highest during summer, but the highest concentrations
might be found during winter when many seals are seen in a narrow band
along the ice edge.
The distribution pattern seems to be changing as many thousands of harp
seals in recent years have stayed along the ice edge in the assessment area
until few weeks before the whelping off Newfoundland. Some observations
of seals whelping in the assessment area have also been made (Rosing-Asvid
2008). Increased competition for food may force the seals to skip the long
exhausting migration to areas with fewer polar bears, but climatic changes
and periods with less ice around Newfoundland might also trigger whelping
in new areas.
Conservation status: Harp seal is the most numerous marine mammal in the
northern hemisphere and the West Atlantic population is probably at the
highest level in historic time. It is listed as of Least Concern on the Greenland
Red List.
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