NOAA’s Fisheries Service has proposed that four subspecies of ringed seals – which generally are found in the Arctic Basin and the North Atlantic – and two distinct populations of bearded seals – who make their home in the Pacific Ocean – be placed on the threatened list under the Endangered Species Act.

Some dogs chase cars, some chase bikes, others chase… sea lions? Yes, it appears that some dogs don’t limit the things they chase to just things on land apparently.

It seems that sea lions have once again pulled the wool over the eyes of researchers. We all know it’s a rough world, and no less is true of those poor orphaned sea lion pups. However, decades of painstaking research has proven that the sea lion females shun any sea lion pups which aren’t there own.. Or do they?

It appears that Washington and Oregon should slaughter more California sea lions over at the Bonnerville Dam this coming new year to help put the states’ controversial “lethal take” program – which is three years old – to the test, and see if it can meet its main goal of dropping the number of salmon feasted upon by sea lions, a joint task force decided this past Wednesday.

An almost impossible to find albino seal has just been given admittance to the Seal Rehabilitation and Research Center Lenie’ t Hart (SRRC) in Holland following coming down with a rather nasty infection in its lungs.

The poor endangered Steller’s sea lions are surviving so poorly, and their populations decreasing alarmingly, at the point of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands that the Obama administration is stepping up, and calling for the immediate cease and desist order for the commercial fishing of two very prominent species of fish; the Atka mackerel and the Pacific cod.

An international team of researchers have shown how one single gene mutation is capable of making the medaka, a Japanese killifish, loose its attractive colours and display a drab grey colour which renders them significantly less attractive to medakas of the opposite sex – unless that potential mate is grey too.

Florida seems to have gotten its very own alleged sea monster. It lives in the waters off Singer Island in the Lake Worth Lagoon, not far from the Riviera Beach Florida Power & Light plant.

A team of U.S. scientists has documented the first transmission of the lethal phocine distemper virus from the Atlantic Ocean to a population of sea otters living along the coast of Alaska.

The first confirmed sighting of a leucistic Southern elephant seal has occurred on a beach on Marion Island, fairly near Antarctica. The entire seal is creamy white, except for eyes and nose which sports the brown colour normally seen in elephant seals.

As reported earlier , the European Union has decided to ban the import of seal skin and other seal products hailing from commercial seal hunting.

This has upset Canadian seal hunters since Italy and Denmark, both members of the European Union, are two major importers of seal products.

Yesterday, the European Parliament voted to ban most seal products from the European market. The legislative resolution was adopted with 550 votes in favour, 49 against and 41 abstentions.

Suggestions from the European Parliament’s will only become law if adopted by the European Council of Ministers, which represents the member states. The legislative report on the seal products ban was agreed with the European Council of Ministers in first-reading.

New laws proposed for managing the seas around Scotland include a year round ban against killing seals. If passed by MSPs, the new laws will make killing or injuring a seal an offence except under licence or for animal welfare concerns.

Modern seals, walruses, and sea lions are all descendants of animals that once lived on land but eventually swapped their terrestrial lifestyle for a life in the ocean. Until now, the morphological evidence for this transition from land to water has been weak, but researchers from Canada and the United States have now found a remarkably well preserved skeleton of a newly discovered carnivorous animal: Puijila darwini.

Tagged Seals are helping Australian scientists learn a great deal more about places, in the deep oceans of Antarctica, where they themselves can not travel. This summer 7 female Weddell Seals were tagged to help researchers gather information on the changes global warming is having on the oceans. The Weddell Seal is a constant inhabitant of the Antarctic, and they are now being used by [...]