Pacific harbor seals vanishing from Baja California waters, study finds

Pacific harbor seals — the playful, whiskered charmers recovered on the West Coast from confederate Alaska to Baja California — are vanishing astatine an alarming complaint from their southernmost range, caller probe shows.

A survey recovered a 61.2% colonisation diminution connected the Baja California Peninsula implicit a six-year period, with researchers signaling a driblet from 7,380 individuals successful 2016 to 2,863 by 2022.

The survey was led by the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education of Ensenada (CICESE), a nationalist probe institute successful Baja California founded by the national authorities successful 1973.

The Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC) and the University of the Americas Puebla (UDLAP) besides contributed.

“This is simply a diminution by colony arsenic good arsenic crossed the full area,” said María Guadalupe Ruiz Mar, a doctoral pupil astatine CICESE. She noted that colonies person collapsed from 44 successful 2009 to conscionable 4 sites this year, arsenic revealed by aerial surveys conducted from April to June.

The species, though not listed arsenic endangered, presently has peculiar extortion nether Mexican authoritative modular NOM-059, which is presently nether review.

“It would beryllium a bully clip to reconsider their conservation status,” said Gisela Heckel Dziendzielewski, a CICESE researcher and manager of the study. “Their disappearance is simply a wide motion that the marine and terrestrial ecosystem is nether pressure. Protecting their situation besides means protecting the wellness of the ocean.”

“If nutrient availability is low, seals don’t person the vigor reserves indispensable to summation the fig of pups,” Ruiz Mar added. “If the pistillate isn’t well-fed and doesn’t person capable abdominous reserves, she won’t transportation a gestation to word oregon beryllium capable to breastfeed successfully.”

Affectionately known arsenic “sea puppies” for their dog-like eyes and playfulness, the Pacific harbor seal (Phoca vitulina richardii) inhabits 9 islands and archipelagos disconnected the Baja Peninsula and parts of the coast.

They are not to beryllium confused with the overmuch larger elephant seal, and specifically 1 named Panchito — a rugged individualist who once again successful 2025 traveled thousands of kilometers from his chilly location waters successful the Southern Hemisphere to “summer” successful Baja California.

Pacific harbor seals similar nearshore coastal environments, particularly subtidal and intertidal zones, bays, and estuaries. They often bent retired connected rocky shores, mudflats, sandbars and occasionally glacial crystal for rest, molting and pupping.

“Seals are precise delicate to disturbance,” Ruiz Mar said. “We judge the beingness of radical and vehicles during [rock quarrying] causes them to persistently fly into the h2o and wantonness the sites wherever they remainder and breed.”

With reports from La Jornada and El Imparcial