A report on unusual mass occurrences of ribbon seal pups along the northeastern coast of Honshu and Southern Hokkaido, Japan

• Main Authors: Sakurai,Yasunori, Abe,Keiichi, Naito,Yasuhiko
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Research Institute of North Pacific Fisheries, Faculty of Fisheries, Hokkaido University/Aomori-Prefectural Asamushi Aquqrium/National Institute of Polar Research 1989
• Subjects: Polar Biology; Proceedings of the NIPR Symposium on Polar Biology
• Online Access: https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=5061; http://id.nii.ac.jp/1291/00005061/; https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=5061&item_no=1&attribute_id=18&file_no=1

To collect information on unusual occurrences of seals along the coast of northern Japan, the questionnaire survey was conducted through the museum, zoos, aquariums and fisheries experimental stations. It revealed that ribbon seal pups unusually occurred along the coast northern Japan in 1984. The white coated pups began to occur in northern area in mid April and after about half month they appeared in southern area. Analysis on both pack ice and oceanographic information suggested that the seal pup dispersion was brought by strong cold current which was particularly prominent in that year.