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- ©: Aquarium of the Pacific, Hugh Ryono
- Ellie is our oldest harbor seal. Nineteen years old, she is the matriarch of our pinnipeds. Her coat is a brownish color.
Harbor seals are members of the family Phocidae. Lacking an external ear flap, members of this family are commonly called the true or earless seals. Fur seals in the family Otariidae, which includes fur seals and California sea lions, are known as eared seals. Earless seals cannot rotate their hind flippers under their bodies so they undulate when on dry land, keeping their flippers at their sides and trailing their hind flippers along unused.
This species has the broadest distribution of the pinniped group of animals. The term “pinniped” comes from the Latin “pinna”, meaning winged, and “ped”, meaning foot. There are five commonly recognized harbor seal subspecies based on geographic distribution; P. v. concolor, P. v. mellonae, P. v. steinegeri, P. v. vitulina., and P. v. richardii./em>.The latter harbor seal subspecies is the one found in southern California.
Facts and Features
- Geographic Distribution
Pacific from Hokkaido, Japan, north to the Kamchatka Peninsula, across the Aleutian Island chain, the southern coast of Alaska, the western coast of Canada and the United States to the northern portion of Baja California, Mexico. Also western Atlantic from the central U.S. coast north to Canada, Greenland, Iceland, and northern Europe
- Amazing Facts
Harbor seals are known to sometimes follow fish runs upstream for many miles. They may stay in fresh water rivers most of the summer, depending on food supply, returning to salt water in late summer or early fall. On October 23, 1805, Clark of Lewis and Clark fame observed “sea otters” in the narrows of the Columbia River, more than 161 km (100 mi) from the Pacific Ocean. He later corrected his mistake in his journal—the animals were not sea otters, they were harbor seals! Today NOAA reports: “It’s common for seals and sea lions to follow prey species into fresh water upstream of Longview, Wash. (river mile 67), up to Willamette Falls (river mile129) and Bonneville Dam (river mile 145)”.
- At the Aquarium
Our three harbor seals are named Ellie, Shelby, and Troy. Shelby was two years old when she came to the Aquarium just before our June 1998 opening. Ellie was a young adult when she arrived in April 1998 shortly before we opened. Troy, our young male, is the youngest in the group and our newest arrival. He is just four years old. He came to the Aquarium in 2007.
