Persistent organic pollutants including organochlorine pesticides, PCBs, and PCDDs/DFs were determined in the blubber of Caspian seals, which died during an outbreak of canine distemper virus in 2000 and 2001. DDTs were the predominant contaminants that ranged from 3.1 to 560 microg/g lipid. A negative correlation was observed between concentration of contaminants and blubber thickness. During ...

Three young grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) were presented separately for fracture repair to the veterinary teaching hospital of University College Dublin. The seals were premedicated with a combination of pethidine, midazolam and atropine; anaesthesia was induced with propofol via the front flipper vein and maintained with sevoflurane or isoflurane in oxygen. One of the seals did not breathe s...

The seal population of Northern Europe was able to recover from the 1988 phocine distemper epidemic that killed about 18,000 seals. However, starting at the beginning of May 2002, unusually high mortality among harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) was noted on the shores of Anholt, an island off the east coast of Denmark. Since then, 182 of about 900 animals, both adult and juvenile, died with clinica...

Electronic markets have successfully adopted third party trust seals as a self-regulatory mechanism to enhance consumer trust. While there exist many papers supporting the effectiveness of trust signals, interaction between trusts seals and contextual factors in e-commerce (e.g., value of shopping carts, number of trust seals displayed, shopper experience and retailer’s sales volume) is an unde...

The Concorde produces audible sonic booms as it passes 15 km north of Sable Island, Nova Scotia, where gray and harbor seals occur year round. The purpose of this research was to assess how sonic booms affect these seals. The intensity of the booms was measured and three types of data (beach counts, frequency of behavior, and heart rate) were collected before and after booms during the breeding...

Aquatic animals use a variety of strategies to reduce the energetic cost of locomotion. Efficient locomotion is particularly important for breath-holding divers because high levels of exercise may quickly deplete oxygen reserves, leading to the termination of a dive. We investigated the swimming behavior of eight adult Weddell seals, which are proficient divers, in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. A ...

The reasons for the decline in some Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) stocks in Newfoundland and southern Labrador are not fully understood, but many resource users consider predation by seals in rivers and nearshore waters to be a contributing factor. To address these concerns, local ecological knowledge (LEK) interviews with resource users (n = 57) were conducted at 29 rivers throughout the Provi...

The propulsive motions of swimming harp seals (Phoca groenlandica Erxleben) and ringed seals (Phoca hispida Schreber) were studied by filming individuals in a flume. The seals swam at velocities ranging from 0.6 to 1.42 m s-1. Locomotion was accomplished with alternate lateral sweeps of the hind flippers generated by lateral flexions of the axial body in conjunction with flexion of the flippers...

Weddell seals are polar predators that must partition their time between many behaviours, including hunting prey at depth and breathing at the surface. Although they have been well studied, little is known about how foraging behaviour changes when access to breathing holes is restricted, such as in the isolated-hole paradigm. The current study took advantage of previously gathered data for seal...

BACKGROUND In recent years, the euthanasia of seals has been discussed internationally and concern has been raised regarding the use of rifles, the effect of different calibres, and which calibres are sufficient for humane euthanasia. This study therefore investigated the effect of different firearm calibres on euthanasia of grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) in traps, and provides information for...