Sightings uncommon, but not rare.
The harp seals are back on the Outer Banks. There’s never a lot of them and this latest sighting is late in the season, but from winter to early spring a few dozen seals are seen on Outer Banks beaches every year.
For the most part they’re harp seals, although an occasional gray seal stops by as well.
The visitors are usually younger seals, although more adult seals are being seen in local waters. The sighting on Pea Island earlier this week would still be considered a seal pup. Juvenile and seal pups have a difficult time competing with adult seals for food, so they head south away from the greatest concentration adults.
As they gain strength and food becomes more abundant in northern waters, they move north again.
The seals seen on Outer Banks beaches are almost always resting—hauling out, as it’s called. They may appear distressed, but really, they’re just catching up on sleep after a few days in the water.
Generally seen as individual seals, it’s almost unheard of for a colony to take up residence along an exposed beach on the Outer Banks. There is at least one area in Pamlico Sound, however, where seals have gathered in larger numbers, according to a 2015 Cape Hatteras National Seashore study.
“Historically, the south end of Green Island has been used by Harbor seals as a haul-out site for consecutive years, therefore a sighting doesn’t necessarily imply one individual; …up to 33 seals have…been observed,” the study’s authors wrote.
About a half mile south of Oregon Inlet, Green Island is a wetlands patch of grass and sand.
They look cute and cuddly—but they are not!
They are wild animals weighing 200 pound or more and they have a vicious bite. They are, after all, carnivores.
Federal law and common sense dictates keeping at least 150’ from them.
Content contributed by Kip Tabb.