Introduction- Ringed seals in the North Atlantic

Abstract

The ringed seal is the smallest of all living seal species, with males reaching a length of 1.5 m and a weight of 95 kg, and females 1.4 m and 80 kg (Bonner 1994). The ringed seal has a north circumpolar distribution. It is the most ice-adapted of seals, and is known to occur throughout the Arctic Ocean, including the north pole (Reeves 1998). The name of the ringed seal refers to the light-coloured rings on the dark grey pelt that are visible on adult animals. In the North Atlantic the ringed seal occurs in marine areas virtually everywhere where there is seasonal ice cover (Fig. 1, not yet completed) (Reeves 1998). In the Western Atlantic they occur as far south as northern Newfoundland, northward to the pole and throughout the Canadian Arctic archipelago. They occur throughout Greenland, but are most abundant where fast ice occurs. Ringed seals occur around Svalbard and Franz Josef Land, and are occasionally encountered in the Faroe Islands and off northern Iceland. In the Eastern Atlantic, ringed seals inhabit the entire Eurasian Arctic coast, including the coastal waters of the White Sea and southeastern Barents Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia and the Baltic Sea. Freshwater populations of ringed seals occur in Canada and in Lakes Ladoga and Saimaa in Europe (Sipilä and Hyvärinen 1998).