Harp seals are a genuinely rare visitor to New York, just 18 total records, at the southern edge of this Arctic-breeding species’ winter range; the IUCN lists it globally Near Threatened, and the state carries no NatureServe rank on file for what’s essentially an occasional cold-season straggler rather than a resident population.
March alone accounts for 11 of the 18 records, well over half the total, with the record completely silent from July through December, a pattern that fits a species that occasionally hauls out on Long Island beaches in late winter before returning north as waters warm.
