June 7th - A return visit from a rare seal!
Today we cruised through our gulf islands looking for our wildlife, and enjoying the beautiful scenery. We stopped to look at Steller sea lions hanging out on a buoy off go Gabriola Island. Every year our Steller sea lions make their migration north to the breeding grounds, but we always have a group that stays behind to long on this buoy. There are plenty of rocky islands and sandy beaches but this spot seems to have captured our sea lions’ attention year after year.
After seeing our sea lions we stopped at Saturnina island to look for Pacific harbour seals. We found our seals lounging on the rocks and were surprised by a familiar face! There was an all-black hairless seal resting amongst the furry seals. We first spotted this seal on the Miami islets back in 2019 with a pup, showing she was a healthy girl doing just fine despite her lack of fur. You may think these guys would be too cold without their fur but apparently, this girl has managed just fine. She reappeared the following year, without a pup this time, but looking as healthy as ever.
Last year we didn’t see her and worried something may have happened to her. Thankfully she seems to be back! We believe this hairless seal has a condition called Alopecia. This condition is an autoimmune disorder and is present in many mammals resulting in hair loss.
In humans, alopecia can be temporary or permanent and can be hereditary or the result of normal changes or other medical conditions. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to find any information on alopecia in harbour seals, so we aren’t sure if this is common, but given that we’ve only seen one seal with the condition we would have to guess that it’s not.
Without her fur this seal lets us see some unique things that often go missed because they are hidden by their thick coat. In the photos of her we can see her little ear holes, as harbour seals don’t have external ears, and we can also see just how long those claws are! Harbour seals have very long claws and sharp teeth to help them catch and hold onto their food, but also provide defence when they are being attacked by large predators like Orca.
While we may not have gotten to see whales on this trip, we did spend time with some pretty cool seals and sea lions.
All our guests received a voucher to come out again for another chance at see our local whales.
Photos by Marine Naturalist Janine Van Der Linden.
Photo by Janine Van Der Linden.
Photo by Janine Van Der Linden.
Photo by Janine Van Der Linden.
Photo by Janine Van Der Linden.
