Happy World Animal Day!
Today is a day to celebrate all animals and how amazing they are. Originally it started as a way to bring awareness to endangered species and has evolved to simply celebrate animals in general.
In honor of World Animal Day I want to talk about a lovely mammal called the Ringed Seal.
Look at that cute little face!
So, ringed seals are some of the most abundant of the arctic seals and are part of the Phocidae family. They live in the Northern Hemisphere in the subpolar oceans. They live around the outer ring of the ice, but can move further in by burrowing breathing holes in the ice with the claws at the end of their flippers. They are some of the only creatures that can burrow through that thick of ice, and sometimes get kicked out of those breathing holes by whales and other marine animals. Polar bears also hunt them in these tubes, so they blow bubbles to the surface before they emerge to check that they aren’t there.
Ringed seals are the smallest of the arctic seals. But that still means they can reach 5 feet in length and over 270 pounds. Not particularly small in my opinion.
They are fairly solitary, basically only coming together on the ice to breed. They only have one pup (see! Water dog.) at a time and the mother keeps them protected in snow lairs.
Look at that cutie!
As far as animals living in the arctic, the ringed seal is doing pretty well but is still listed as threatened. Climate change and the shrinking of the polar ice caps gives them less stable land on which to rest, breed, and have their pups. Ocean pollution is also impacting them as well as hunting.
On World Animal Day, and really all of the days, please think about the impact of your choices and what you can do to support your fellow creatures!
Here’s one last picture of these guys, because I can’t get enough.
Brief stories of amazing creatures 