### device | seal:

Harbor seal
* Most harbor seals have ability
  - inhabit ice-free waters year round
* are a gregarious species that frequently aggregate on haul-out sites at low tide.
* are able to swim soon after birth
  - taste the differences in levels of salt in seawater
  - brown, tan, or gray, with distinctive V-shaped nostrils
* are common and killer and gray whales are occasionally seen nearby
  - whales are present in local waters
  - in the saltwater, and clamming can be great
  - curious but shy animals that prefer quiet, unpopulated areas
  - highly opportunistic feeders
  - littoral in distribution and can often be seen on protected tidal rocks and reefs
  - marine mammals and, as such, are federally protected
  - much smaller and quite wary and elusive
  - nonmigratory, though their home tange is fairly large
  - perhaps the most precocial of all phocid seals
  - sleeping on the icebergs and bald eagles are abundant
* are the most abundant seals off the New England coastline
  - common in New England
  - true seals
* are usually a grey splotchy in appearance
  - solitary in water, but haul out in groups of a few to thousands
  - well adapted to life in the sea
* become less playful and less tolerant of close contact as they mature.
* can haul out any time of the day or night.
* come on shore to rest and breed in groups at terrestrial sites called 'haul outs'.
* do enter rivers to feed if sufficient food fish are available.
* eat bottom fish, rockfish, herring, and some salmon.
* feed on a wide variety of coastal fish and shellfish
  - squids, crustaceans, mollusks, and fishes
  - opportunistically on fish, squid, and octopus
* give birth to a single pup on land
  - one pup in the spring
* haul out on several islands and bald eagles nest as well
  - the offshore rocks at the tip of the headland
* have a rounded head with forward facing eyes
  - finished weaning their pups, so the breeding season begins anew
  - no external ears and their eyes are prominent
  - the same basic bone structure that land mammals have
  - thick, short, coarse hair that sheds every year after breeding season
* inhabit temperate and subarctic waters of the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans
  - the shores of oceans in the northern hemisphere
* lack the extreme sexual dimorphism common to many species of pinnipeds.
* lose hair as they age, as with humans and land mammals alike.
* molt annually, usually in late summer.
* move through the water using large rear flippers which they swish from side to side.
* play in the local waters.
* pop their heads out of the water to scan the surface for killer whales.
* return annually to traditional breeding sites.
* ride the icebergs.
* share several similar features in body structure as with other land mammals.
* show aggression by growling, snorting, and waving threateningly with a foreflipper.
* spend their entire lives along the same stretch of coastline.
* tend to stay closer to the surface of the ocean than hooded seals do.

### device | seal:

Harbour seal
* Most harbour seals have heads
  - round heads
  - considerably smaller and sport beautiful slick mottled coats
  - in residence as well as other live marine species
  - located off both the east and west coast of the United States
  - rare
* are resident and abundant
  - are found in all coastal areas
  - here, while ringed and bearded seals winter in the area
  - very abundant in the world and are found all over the Northern Hemisphere
  - year round residents
* can detect prey using nerves in their whiskers to sense pressure changes in the water
  - sleep underwater
* sleep on the ice floes and bald eagles are abundant.

Harp seal
* All harp seals are confined to the wintery climates of the arctic.
* Some harp seals have membranes.