RELATIONSHIP/INTERACTION
Population
- They travel in groups of up to 150 seals.
- Most female seals give birth when they are 5 or 6 years old, at some occasions they can give birth when they are 2 or 3 years old. They continue to give birth every year until they are 25.
- All seal pups can develop within minutes, they can learn how to walk, communicate, and even swim.
- Mothers nurse their pup by going out to sea for several days then returning to land to take care of their child for 1-3 days. This cycle goes on for 4 months and up to 3 years.
- When the mothers come back to sea they call their child, each mother and child has a unique call. The mother can also recognize her child by their smell.
- They communicate vocally using different pitch and volume.
- Growling, snorting, and grunting are often use by male seals when they sense danger and warn the other seals.
- A seal's noise can be heard by 10,000 other seals. So seals change in volume to prevent disturbance for other groups of seals other than their own.
- Another form of communication made by seals would be physical movements such as slapping the water with their flippers to show aggression against predators or other seals.
- Seals normally don't fight with each other, the only time there is a brawl between two seals is during mating season.
- Seals don't like to touch each other, they stay in groups but keep a small distance away from each other.
- Some competitors are sea lions, dolphins, and other seals because they have the same diet needs so they compete for food and land.
- Their diet consist of fish, squid, crab, shrimp, duck, penguins, and sometimes other seals.
- Some predators are sharks, polar bears, orcas, wolves, foxes, and whales.
- Seals can stay underwater for up to 30 minutes to chase down food.
- Seals are classified as marine animals but they adapt to both land and water.
- Seals live in the Tundra and Marine biome.
- Seals live on the shorelines so it's easier to get into the salt water.
- The majority of them live in the cooler regions of the Arctic and Antarctica, because of their blubber the can adapt to the freezing temperatures. Some seals can also be found in the warmer regions depending how thick their blubber is.
- Seals live in environments where there aren't a lot of predators and competition for food, the disturbance is minimal.
- Living closer to the water makes it easier for seals to get their food. Also in the water, seals swim quicker compared to being on land they move super slow dragging themselves.