harp seals quick facts
- Harp seals are named after the harp-shaped patch on adults’ backs.
- They eat more than 130 kinds of fish and invertebrates.
- They can dive to about 400 m and stay under for about 16 minutes.
- A pup drinks its mother’s milk for only about 12 days.
- Hunting whitecoat pups has been illegal in Canada since 1987.
What is a harp seal?
Harp seals are seals that live in the cold waters of the North Atlantic and the Arctic. They spend much of their lives in icy seas, and they rest, give birth and moult on floating sea ice.
They get their name from a curved black patch on the backs of adults. NOAA Fisheries, the United States government’s ocean wildlife agency, says the patch looks like a harp, a stringed musical instrument.
There are a lot of them. NOAA Fisheries says harp seals are the most abundant marine mammal in the North Atlantic, and millions of them live there.
| Harp seal at a glance | |
|---|---|
| Where | North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans |
| Length | about 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in) |
| Weight | about 130 to 150 kg (287 to 331 lb) |
| Main food | capelin, Arctic cod and polar cod |
| Pups | one a year, born on the ice |
| Lifespan | about 25 to 40 years |
| Status | Least Concern |
What does a harp seal look like?
Adult harp seals have light grey fur and a black face, NOAA Fisheries says. The dark harp-shaped band curves along both sides of the back.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Canadian government department that studies the seals, says adults are about 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in) long and weigh 130 to 150 kg. Males and females are about the same size.
Animal Diversity Web, a University of Michigan project, gives slightly different averages. It says males average 135 kg (298 lb) and females 120 kg (265 lb).
Harp seal pups look completely different from their parents. They are born with soft, fluffy white fur, which is why they are famous around the world.
Harp seals live a long time for a wild animal. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says they live 25 to 40 years, and NOAA Fisheries says about 30 years.
Where do harp seals live?
Fisheries and Oceans Canada says there are three separate populations of harp seals. Each one has its own area on the ice where the pups are born.
The Northwest Atlantic group lives off eastern Canada and western Greenland. The Greenland Sea group breeds off south-east Greenland. The third group breeds in the White Sea and Barents Sea, off northern Russia.
The biggest group, off eastern Canada, has two breeding herds. NOAA Fisheries says the “Front” herd breeds off Newfoundland and Labrador, and the “Gulf” herd breeds near the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence.
Harp seals like cold coastal seas close to pack ice. Animal Diversity Web says they prefer to climb out onto ice that is at least 0.25 m (about 10 in) thick. Learn more about their icy home in our Arctic Ocean facts.
Some harp seals wander further south. NOAA Fisheries says that since the early 1990s, more harp seals have been seen on the east coast of the United States, from Maine to New Jersey, usually between January and May.
A long journey every year
Harp seals are great travellers. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says they spend the summer in the Canadian Arctic and around Greenland.
In autumn, most of them swim south to the Gulf of St Lawrence, or to the waters off southern Labrador and northern Newfoundland. That is where the pups will be born in late winter.
NOAA Fisheries says this yearly migration is a round trip of about 5,000 km (more than 3,100 miles). Harp seals are sociable on the way, and can gather in groups of up to several thousand.
What do harp seals eat?
Harp seals eat a huge variety of food. NOAA Fisheries says they eat more than 130 kinds of animals: about 65 kinds of fish and 70 kinds of invertebrates, such as shrimp.
Their most important foods are small fish called capelin, Arctic cod and polar cod, NOAA Fisheries says.
In Canadian waters, Fisheries and Oceans Canada says they also eat shrimp, prawns, plaice, redfish, sculpin, herring, Greenland halibut and Atlantic cod.
How do scientists know all this? Fisheries and Oceans Canada says they look at what is in seals’ stomachs, test the fats in their blubber, and even read the DNA of prey animals found inside them.
Deep divers
Harp seals find their food underwater, and they are excellent divers. NOAA Fisheries says they can dive to about 400 m (1,300 ft) and stay underwater for about 16 minutes.
Those are their record dives. Animal Diversity Web says most dives are 150 to 200 m deep and last 4 to 13 minutes.
Harp seal pups
A mother harp seal has one pup a year. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says the pups are born on the ice between late February and mid-March.
Mothers need thick, stable ice to give birth and raise their pups. A newborn pup weighs about 11 kg (24 lb) and is 80 to 85 cm long, Fisheries and Oceans Canada says.
Harp seal milk is incredibly rich. Animal Diversity Web says it is about 48% fat, far richer than the milk people drink.
A pup drinks its mother’s milk for only about 12 days. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says it gains more than 2.2 kg (nearly 5 lb) every day while it feeds. By the time it stops, NOAA Fisheries says, it weighs about 36 kg (80 lb).
Then the mother leaves. NOAA Fisheries says the pup stays on the ice for about six weeks without eating, living off its fat, and can lose up to half its body weight before it goes to sea to hunt.
Life is hard for young seals. Animal Diversity Web says 20 to 30% of pups die young. NOAA Fisheries says females can breed at four to seven years old, and males at seven to eight.
Why are the pups white?
Newborn harp seal pups have fluffy white fur. People call them whitecoats.
The white coat does not last long. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says pups start to moult it at about 10 days old and finish by 3 weeks old. NOAA Fisheries says the white fur lasts until about 3 to 4 weeks.
Underneath, the pups grow a new coat of short grey fur with dark spots. The harp-shaped patch appears only when they are adults.
Why sea ice matters
Fisheries and Oceans Canada says harp seals need pack ice to give birth, to feed their pups and to moult. Without good ice, pups struggle to survive.
Some years have been very bad. In 2010, Fisheries and Oceans Canada says, there was hardly any ice in the southern Gulf of St Lawrence during the pupping season, and scientists saw almost no pups born there.
In 2011 the ice formed late, was thin and broke up quickly, and a very high number of pups died. Ice from 2009 to 2011 was the lowest since the Canadian Ice Service started daily ice charts in 1969.
When ice was missing from their usual areas, pregnant females moved further north to the Front, off south-east Labrador.
Things may get harder. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says climate models suggest ice in the Gulf of St Lawrence could last 70% less time by 2050. The animal welfare charity IFAW reported that 2021 had the lowest ice cover since measurements began in 1969.
Predators and other dangers
Harp seals have several natural predators. Animal Diversity Web lists polar bears, killer whales, Greenland sharks and walruses. Find out more about how polar bears hunt in What Do Polar Bears Eat?.
People cause problems too. NOAA Fisheries says harp seals are hit by boats, caught in fishing gear, and harmed by chemical pollution and oil spills, as well as by climate change.
NOAA Fisheries says 363 dead harp seals were reported stranded on the Atlantic coast of the United States between 2015 and 2019.
How many harp seals are there?
NOAA Fisheries published a report in May 2022 that estimated 7.6 million harp seals in the Northwest Atlantic population in 2019. The last pup survey in that report, from March 2017, counted about 746,500 pups.
Canada published a newer assessment in 2025. We could not open it to check its figures, so this guide uses the 2019 estimate.
Harp seal numbers have been much lower in the past. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says commercial sealing brought the population very low in the 1960s, and it is still below the level it was at before sealing began.
Today, harp seals are listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, Animal Diversity Web says. In the United States, NOAA Fisheries says, they are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
The seal hunt
Harp seals have been hunted for a long time, and people disagree strongly about it. This section explains what each side says.
NOAA Fisheries says commercial hunters have caught harp seals in Canada for meat and oil since the 1600s. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says harp seals make up almost all of the seals hunted commercially in Canada.
The hunt is much smaller than it used to be. Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s figures show about 82,000 harp seals taken in 2017, 2,000 in 2020, when the hunt mostly closed because of the pandemic, 43,000 in 2023 and 31,000 in 2024.
The Government of Canada says hunting whitecoat pups has been illegal since 1987. It says it does not set a quota, because few people take part and there is little demand for seal products. It also says hunters must hold a licence and be trained, and that it uses rules meant to make the hunt humane.
In Greenland, people hunt harp seals for food. NOAA Fisheries says Greenland’s hunt took about 48,000 to 62,000 harp seals a year between 2015 and 2019.
The European Union has banned the sale of seal products since 2009, because many EU citizens were worried about animal welfare. The European Commission says the ban has exceptions for hunts by Inuit and other Indigenous communities.
IFAW, an animal welfare charity, was founded in 1969 to end the hunting of whitecoat pups. It says the hunt “cannot be conducted humanely”, and that the number of seals killed fell by 90% between 2006 and 2019.
Other animals of the far north face their own challenges. Meet another icy hunter in our Arctic fox facts.
Three things people get wrong
Harp seals are not endangered. They are listed as Least Concern, though numbers are still below what they were before sealing.
Hunters in Canada do not take white pups. Hunting whitecoats has been illegal there since 1987.
Pups do not stay white for months. They moult their white coat by about 3 weeks old.
Did you know? Harp seal milk is about 48% fat, so pups gain more than 2 kg a day while they feed.
Try it
Find the Gulf of St Lawrence and Greenland on a map. Trace the harp seals’ yearly journey of about 5,000 km between them.
Knowledge check
Why are harp seals called harp seals?
Show answer
Adults have a black patch on their backs shaped like a harp.
Why do harp seals need sea ice?
Show answer
They give birth, feed their pups and moult on it.
Frequently asked questions
Where do harp seals live?
Harp seals live in the cold North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, off eastern Canada, Greenland and northern Russia, close to pack ice.
What do harp seals eat?
They eat more than 130 kinds of animals. Their main foods are small fish called capelin, Arctic cod and polar cod, plus shrimp.
Why are harp seal pups white?
Pups are born with fluffy white fur, called whitecoats. They start moulting it at about 10 days old and finish by about 3 weeks.
How long do harp seal pups stay with their mothers?
Only about 12 days. The mother then leaves, and the pup stays on the ice for about six weeks without eating.
Are harp seals endangered?
No. They are listed as Least Concern, but NOAA and Canada say thin sea ice and other threats cause problems for them.
Is the harp seal hunt still going on?
Yes, in Canada and Greenland, but it is much smaller than before. Hunting whitecoat pups has been illegal in Canada since 1987.
Sources
- NOAA Fisheries: harp seal — size, diet, diving, pups, migration and threats; its management page and 2022 stock assessment report were also used
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada: harp seal — size, lifespan, populations, pups, moult and diet; its pages on seal harvest figures, climate change and seal science were also used
- Government of Canada: seal management on Canada’s east coast (2022) — the whitecoat ban, quotas and licences
- Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan: harp seal — size by sex, ice, diving, milk, pup survival, predators and status
- European Commission: trade in seal products — the EU ban and its exceptions
- IFAW (an animal welfare charity): the Canadian seal hunt — the charity’s view of the hunt; its page on climate change and seals was also used
