Northern Fur Seals
Size
Males: up to 7 feet and 600 lbs. Females: up to 5 feet and 140 lbs.
Diet
A wide array or fish and squid: Pacific herring, Atka mackeral, Pacific salmon, Pacific sandlace and squid
Habitat
Open ocean and rocky beaches for resting, molting and reproduction
Range
Eastern North Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea, Pribilof islands, Okhotsk Seas
Conservation Status
Least Concern
Near Threatened
Vulnerable
Endangered
Critical
Extinct in Wild
Extinct
Northern fur seals have the second densest coat of any animal with 300,000 hairs per square inch.
Mystic Aquarium’s Northern fur seal species ambassadors are helping National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to develop a new approach for conducting northern fur seal abundance surveys with unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, Northern fur seals are classified as Vulnerable. Mystic Aquarium is proud to be one of only three facilities to care for Northern fur seals in the United States; providing a home for a colony of fur seals, each with its own unique rescue and rehabilitation story.
Northern Fur Seal Quick Facts
Threats in the wild
Human interaction injuries like illegal hunting, entanglement, oil spills, pollution and habitat loss.
Prey
Northern fur seals feed mostly at night using shallow dives to search for food but can dive to over 800 feet searching for a variety of schooling fish and squid.
Size
Male northern fur seals can reach maximum lengths of 6 feet 11inches and almost 600 pounds while females are slightly smaller with a maximum length 4 feet 11 inches and 130 pounds.