 During the summer months the harp seal is a common wanderer around the north shore, Húnaflói area included. These seals are very social and travel togeather in big groups, expecially when sea ice is close to the shore.
Harp seal is similar to harbour seal in size but very different in colour. Young seals are grey with black spots but an adult seal is mottled, white and black, with a black head and a black scut.
From February to March the females give birth to one pup out on the sea ice. They do not pup around Iceland but young seals and pups often get cought in fishing nets.
The harp seals main food supply consists of capelin, baitfish and herring. In Icelandic waters they mostly eat baitfish, codfish, capelin, shrimp, squid and other small sea animals.
Now three large harp seal stocks are found in the North Atlantic Ocean, they reside in the Barents Sea, Icelandic Sea (north of Jan Mayen) and around Newfoundland. The seals that visit Iceland are most likely of the Jan Mayen stock.
In the early years, the harp seal was hunted in great quantities by Norweigians, Russians and Canadians. The hunting has now been dramatically reduced, the main cause beeing the bad status of the sealskin market. The world’s harbour seal stock is now estimated between 9 – 10 million animals.
Now, more harp seal sightings have been reported around Iceland then in the last 25 years, although those numbers are nothing compared to the harp seal’s “invation”, in the great sea ice years in the 19th and 20th century.
Drawing: Jón Baldur Hlíðberg
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