{"id":271,"date":"2025-02-12T09:00:42","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T17:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/?p=271"},"modified":"2023-07-17T12:01:39","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T19:01:39","slug":"pacific-harbor-seal-phoca-vitulina-richardii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/pacific-harbor-seal-phoca-vitulina-richardii\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacific harbor seal (Phoca vitulina richardii)"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_272\" class=\"wp-caption thumbnail alignright\" style=\"width: 300px;\">\n    <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-272 size-medium\" title=\"Photo Courtesy of The Marine Mammal Center\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/files\/2017\/04\/pacific-harbor-seals-300x219.jpg?resize=300%2C219\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2774\/files\/2017\/04\/pacific-harbor-seals.jpg?resize=300%2C219&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2774\/files\/2017\/04\/pacific-harbor-seals.jpg?w=334&amp;ssl=1 334w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>\n    <figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pacific harbor seals<\/figcaption>\n    <\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Harbor seals are the most widely distributed pinniped. On the Oregon Coast, you will most likely encounter the Eastern Pacific harbor seal, a subspecies found between Alaska and Baja California, Mexico. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">These seals have spotted coats in a variety of shades from white or silver-gray to black or dark brown. They favor near-shore coastal waters and use rocks, reefs, beaches, and drifting glacial ice as haul out and pupping sites. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pacific harbor seals spend about half their time on land and half in the water. They can even sleep with their bodies nearly submerged in water, exposing only the tip of their nose to the air &#8211; a posture called \u201cbottling.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Ocean threats<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite being skilled swimmers, harbor seals face a number of threats in the ocean. There is currently no commercial hunting of harbor seals, but some native subsistence hunting of seals still occurs. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because they compete for many of the same species of fish, harbor seals are sometimes killed by commercial fishermen. Seals can also become entangled and drown in fishing nets and gear. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In addition, the species is preyed upon by killer whales, sharks, and Steller\u2019s sea lions. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">El Ni\u00f1o events can decrease the animal\u2019s food availability, which includes a variety of fish, shellfish, and crustaceans. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Harbor seals are the most widely distributed pinniped. On the Oregon Coast, you will most likely encounter the Eastern Pacific harbor seal, a subspecies found between Alaska and Baja California, Mexico. These seals have spotted coats in a variety of shades from white or silver-gray to black or dark brown. They favor near-shore coastal waters&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/pacific-harbor-seal-phoca-vitulina-richardii\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8280,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3445],"tags":[1362727,1362748],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wildlife","tag-fauna","tag-mammal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8280"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3006,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions\/3006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/coastaltourism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}