Today we are gonna meet animal inhabiting the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions with several rings on its back - Ringed seal.
Ringed seal
The ringed seal is the smallest and most common seal in the Arctic, with a small head, short cat-like snout, and a plump body. Its coat is dark with silver rings on the back and sides with a silver belly, giving this seal its vernacular name. Depending on subspecies and condition, adult size can range from 100 to 175 cm (39.5 to 69 in) and weigh from 32 to 140 kg (71 to 309 lb). The seal averages about 5 ft (1.5 m) long with a weight of about 50–70 kg (110–150 lb). This species is usually considered the smallest species in the true seal family, although several related species, especially the Baikal seal, may approach similarly diminutive dimensions. Their small front flippers have claws more than 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick that are used to maintain breathing holes through 6.5 ft (2.0 m) thick ice.
Ringed seals eat a wide variety of small prey that consists of 72 species of fish and invertebrates. Feeding is usually a solitary behavior and their prey of choice includes mysids, shrimp, arctic cod, and herring. While feeding, ringed seals dive to depths of 35 to 150 ft (11 to 46 m). In the summer ringed seals feed along edge of the sea-ice for polar cod. In shallow water they feed on smaller cod. Ringed seals may also eat herring, smelt, whitefish, sculpin, perch, and crustaceans.
Ringed seal are an important food item in particular for polar bears. During the pupping season, Arctic fox and glaucous gulls take ringed seal pups born outside lairs while killer whales, Greenland sharks and occasionally Atlantic walruses prey upon them in the water.
Distribution
Ringed seals occur throughout the Arctic Ocean. They can be found in the Baltic Sea, the Bering Sea and the Hudson Bay. They prefer to rest on ice floe and will move farther north for denser ice.
Ringed seals have a circumpolar distribution from approximately 35°N to the North Pole, occurring in all seas of the Arctic Ocean. In the North Pacific, they are found in the southern Bering Sea and range as far south as the seas of Okhotsk and Japan. Throughout their range, ringed seals have an affinity for ice-covered waters and are well adapted to occupying seasonal and permanent ice. They tend to prefer large floes and are often found in the interior ice pack where the sea ice coverage is greater than 90%. They remain in contact with ice most of the year and pup on the ice in late winter-early spring.
Ringed seals are found throughout the Beaufort, Chukchi, and Bering Seas, as far south as Bristol Bay in years of extensive ice coverage. During late April through June, ringed seals are distributed throughout their range from the southern ice edge northward. Preliminary results from recent surveys conducted in the Chukchi Sea in May–June 1999 and 2000 indicate that ringed seal density is higher in nearshore fast and pack ice, and lower in offshore pack ice.
Ringed seals reside in arctic waters and are commonly associated with ice floes and pack ice. The ringed seal maintains a breathing hole in the ice thus allowing it to use ice habitat that other seals cannot.
Conservation
The estimated population size for the Alaska stock of ringed seals is 249,000 animals. In 2010 the trend in numbers for this population was unknown. Ringed seals are listed as a species of "least concern" by the IUCN, and were considered 'not threatened' under the Endangered Species Act in 2006. Reliable estimates of the minimum population, potential biological removal and human-caused mortality were not available in 2006.
In 2008 the US National Marine Fisheries Service began a conservation status review under the Endangered Species Act to determine if listing this seal under the ESA is warranted.
That's it for today. See you all next time.
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