Seals, octopuses, jellyfish and more

Hooded seal

Cystophora cristata

A deep diver of the northern pack ice, rarely seen for long. Hooded seals appear when the ice allows, and no sighting is a promise.

EndangeredIn 8 Atlas countries

Endangered (IUCN, assessed 2025) means it faces a very high risk of extinction in the wild, and NAMMCO reports that the Greenland Sea stock has kept falling even without hunting.

Young hooded seal with a spotted coat lying on drifting sea ice — Photo: Ingvild Riska, iNaturalist, CC BY

Hooded seal with a dark spotted grey coat resting on the ice — Photo: steve b, iNaturalist, CC0

Two spotted hooded seals lying together on an ice floe with blue sea behind them — Photo: Anil Madhavapeddy, iNaturalist, CC BY

Two hooded seals at the surface of calm water, one showing its dark head — Photo: Pål A. Olsvik, iNaturalist, CC BY

Photos show the species, not always the places on this page.

Length

Males about 2.5 to 2.6 m (8.2 to 8.5 ft); females about 2.0 to 2.2 m (6.6 to 7.2 ft)

Weight

Males about 190 to 350 kg (420 to 780 lb), averaging about 300 kg; females about 145 to 300 kg (320 to 660 lb), averaging about 160 kg. Pups weigh about 20 to 24 kg (44 to 53 lb) at birth

Next to a person

A male is longer than any adult is tall and as heavy as about four adults. A female is about as long as a tall adult and as heavy as two.

What it eats

Squid and fish. In the Greenland Sea they eat squid (Gonatus fabricii), polar cod, capelin and sand eels; in the northwest Atlantic Greenland halibut, cod and redfish. They usually dive to about 100 to 600 m, and some dives pass 1,000 m and last close to an hour.

Around people

Calm, give space

How it lives

Hooded seals live mostly at sea and come together on the ice to breed. Males grow a stretchy hood on the nose from about age four and can inflate a pink balloon from one nostril to attract a mate. The pup, called a blue-back for its grey-blue coat, nurses for only about 3 to 5 days, the shortest nursing period of any mammal, on milk that is about 60 percent fat. Hooded seals live about 25 to 35 years.

Where it goes

Hooded seals live in drifting pack ice and deep water. They gather on the ice to breed in four areas, the Gulf of St Lawrence, the Front off Newfoundland, Davis Strait and the West Ice near Jan Mayen, then spread out to feed. They range roughly from 47 to 80 degrees north. I did not read tracking studies for the Greenland coast.

We only draw a journey on the map when scientists have tracked it or clearly documented it. For this animal we have not found one yet.

Populations

NAMMCO describes two groups. The northwest Atlantic stock is about 594,000 and stable or increasing, up from under 375,000 in 1984. The Greenland Sea stock is about 77,000 (2018 survey), down from 102,000 in 1997 and about 1.4 million in 1946, and NAMMCO says it keeps declining even without hunting. The IUCN lists the species as Endangered (assessed 2025). Hunting was restricted from 1971.

Meet it respectfully

Watch quietly from a distance. Hooded seal mothers leave the pup after only a few days, so never approach or handle a pup on the ice. Never chase, touch, feed or bait a seal. In US waters NOAA asks people to watch seals from at least 50 yards (about 46 m) and for no more than 30 minutes. I did not read the rules for Greenland, so follow your guide and local rules.

Fun fact

Tap the bulb to light it up.

Sources for this page

Facts checked 5 October 2026. Photos: Unsplash licence, or Creative Commons as shown on each photo.

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