Gray Seal
Halichoreus grypus

The scientific community was not particularly kind when it came to the gray seal. The scientific name Halichoreus grypus is derived from the Greek words meaning “hook-nosed sea pig.”

Despite this less-than-flattering imagery, the gray seal is well-adapted to life in the open ocean. Using its foreflippers only for steering, the seal is propelled through the water by powerful movements of its hindquarters. Its large eyes and long whiskers allow the seal to “see” underwater despite low levels of light and visibility.

Gray seals can dive to a depth of several hundred feet and remain underwater for up to 20 minutes at a time. Feeding on fish, squid, octopus and crustaceans such as shrimp, adult males can grow to almost 10 feet long and weigh more than 800 pounds. Females are often much smaller, sometimes weighing three times less than their male counterparts. Not surprisingly, newborn pups grow extremely fast on their mother’s fat-rich milk; pups can gain more than three pounds a day until they are weaned at around 3 weeks of age.

Like all true seals in the family Phocidae, the gray seal lacks ear flaps, and it is unable to raise itself on its foreflippers, relying instead on flopping rather ungracefully to travel while on land. At the zoo’s Kovler Sea Lion Pool, you can watch the gray seals and smaller- bodied harbor seals both above the water and through underwater viewing
windows.