Ice Seal Tracking Maps Archive

From 9 November to 3 December 2020, we received locations for 1 bearded, 4 ringed and 3 spotted seals. During this period, BS19-01-M (red square), an adult bearded seal, hauled out on sea ice in Barrow Canyon. The last location received for this bearded seal was in mid-August when it hauled out on sea ice north of the continental shelf break. This bearded seal was also located in Barrow Canyon during much of the winter of 2019-2020. Ringed seal RS19-02-M (yellow arrow) moved from an area east of Utqiaġvik to near Icy Cape. Ringed seal RS19-05-M (purple arrow) and all three spotted seals (circles) hauled out on sea ice in an area near Ledyard Bay and Cape Lisburne; spotted seal SS19-05-M (purple circle) moved from Kolyuchinskaya Bay, Chukotka, Russia, to the Alaskan coast. The remaining two ringed seals, RS19-03-M (orange arrow) and RS19-04-M (blue arrow), hauled out on sea ice on the north coast of Seward Peninsula.
These seals were tagged during the summer and fall of 2019. As expected, the primary tags we epoxied to their backs have since fallen off during the annual molt this spring. The locations we are currently receiving are from the SPOT tags we attached to their flippers. Because SPOT tags are attached to their flippers we only receive locations when the seal has hauled out of the water, either on sea ice or land. Sea ice data are courtesy of the U.S. National Ice Center, dated 3 December 2020 (http://www.natice.noaa.gov/products/daily_products.html).