Seal Pups

A mature female seal of 5-6 years age can give birth to one pup a year during the breeding season. The seals travel long distances to find their perfect breeding nurseries. For instance, the seals that breed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and ‘the Front’ regions in Canada travel about 1,555 miles from Greenland. Reaching the nursery area, all the mother seals gather together and give birth to one pup each. The seal pups are completely covered with shining white fur and they remain on ice at the beaches. However, the pups of common seals can swim right from their birth. Though all the seal pups look alike, they have distinct smells. The mother seals sense the typical scent of their young ones and identify them throughout the weaning period only with the help of this unique smell.

At birth, the pups weigh about 10 kg. They do not have blubber around their body. The seal’s milk is highly fatty up to 50%, when the cow’s milk contains only 4% fat. The females drain out their fatty store during the weaning phase for their young ones. The mothers do not eat during this time and burn down up to 3 kg of fat per day. However, the pups gain a remarkable weight during the weaning phase up to 23 kg reaching 40 kg when they are weaned. The pups suckle milk once every 2-6 hours. Mothers stay close to their pups during the first few days. Following this, during the brief periods between their nursing, the mothers go into the sea for swimming leaving their pups. However, they frequently keep a watch over their young ones to prevent any harm by other seals and animals, besides checking whether they cry out for milk.

Once the weaning is over at about twelve days from birth, the pups are abandoned and the mothers leave. The mothers then mate once again with males and leave to their far off places at Greenland coasts to spend the summer. However, still the pups are not ready to swim or catch their prey. They initially cry out for their mothers, but begin learning and developing their body over 20-25 days before they can go in to the sea and find their food. During the post-weaning phase, the pups thrive on the fat reserve.

The pups retain their attractive white coat for about two weeks. Then the white fur starts shedding and the pups develop grey and silver coat. However, to develop a typical adult’s pattern, it takes about four to five years for the seals. After the mothers leave, the pups remain in large groups on the ice till it breaks up. As they remain sedentary on the ice during this phase, the ice melts down beneath their bodies and a cup shaped cradle to the size of their body is formed. Once the seals adapt to swimming and catching their prey, they follow the trails of their mothers towards Greenland.