National Marine Conservation Areas of Canada

Canada’s National Marine Conservation Areas System Plan

Ringed seal (Phoca hipsida)

The most common seal in the Arctic and found essentially everywhere north of 60° latitude, ranging the ice-bound coasts. Smallest of the seals, both sexes are only about 1.4 m long and weigh up to 90 kg. As the sea freezes, the seals use their teeth and claws to make breathing holes in the ice, keeping a watchful eye out for polar bears as they come up to breathe. Females dig a lair in the snow over landfast ice to bear their young and use a hole in the floor to come and go unseen.