New Hampshire’s data holds just eight grey seal records, with the most recent sighting from June 2026.
A short coast without much haul-out ground
A grey seal needs a rocky ledge, an isolated island, or a sandbar clear of people to haul out on for resting, molting, and pupping. New Hampshire’s short Seacoast has far less of that kind of ground than Maine’s rocky shore just to the north, so the state’s few records most likely reflect seals passing along the coast or resting briefly near island groups like the Isles of Shoals and the tidal flats of Great Bay, rather than any dedicated haul-out site within the state.
Records cluster around the molt
Reports turn up from early summer through fall, heaviest in August, the stretch when grey seals in the Gulf of Maine come ashore most often to molt. Outside that window a grey seal spends nearly all its time submerged and hunting, well out of sight of anyone on shore.
Status in New Hampshire
The grey seal is native to New Hampshire’s waters. NatureServe doesn’t assign it a state rank at all, marking it Not Applicable, since a wide-ranging marine mammal like this one is managed under federal law rather than tracked by state wildlife agencies.
