Alaska’s northern fur seals center on the Pribilof Islands out in the Bering Sea, St. Paul and St. George, home to the largest fur seal breeding colonies in the United States. Outside the short breeding season, this species disappears onto the open ocean, diving deep for squid far from any shoreline, which is part of why it’s recorded far less often than seals that haul out along the coast every day.
A fur seal here is built for cold, deep water rather than lounging on a beach. Alaska’s fur seals feed heavily on armhook and gonate squid, diving well below the surface, often at night, rather than foraging in shallow water the way a harbor seal does. Bulls gather large groups of females on rookery beaches each summer, one of the more crowded breeding scenes among Alaska’s marine mammals.
Sightings peak from June through August, tracking the breeding season when animals crowd onto the Pribilofs and observers are most likely to be there to see them. Records thin out fast once the colonies disperse back to open water for the rest of the year.
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