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• Main Authors: Tore Haug, Kjell T. Nilssen, Torger Øritsland
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Key words; Body condition; diet; growth; harp seals; hooded seals NAFO Sci. Coun. Studies; 26; 101–104; Norway; Harp Seal; North Norway; Phoca groenlandica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.546.5372; http://archive.nafo.int/open/studies/s26/haug.pdf

Two particular fields of seal studies in Norwegian and adjacent waters during the win-ter and spring in 1995 included a study of the present 'harp seal (Phoca groenlandica) invasions ' in North Norway and the 'ecology of seal pups'. This report summarizes the infor-mation collected to date from these two projects. The mid-winter invasion data showed harp seal interactions with finfish fisheries such as damage to gillnets and disappearance of fish from traditional grounds along the coast of Norway. Age determinations of 80 individuals, showed that 71 were young-of-the-year (i.e. born in 1994), 6 were born in 1993 and 2 in 1992. From the preliminary stomach data, it appears that small gadoids dominated the diet. In the early-spring invasion it appeared that all the sampled seals were sexually mature females, ranging in standard length between 155 and 184 cm. All sampled seals had stom-achs well-filled with fish and invasions appear to be related to feeding migrations performed by adult females. In the seal pup ecology project considering the short time period since the survey, only preliminary results were available for this presentation. One vessel (M/S Harmoni) operated in the East Ice. Data were obtained from 152 ragged jackets and 96 beaters. Two vessels (M/S Polarfangst and M/S Polarstar) operated in the West Ice. Data were obtained from 360 ragged jackets, 8 beaters, and 364 bluebacks.