Common Seal

Common seals may gather in herds of up to several hundred animals.

Back from the brink

The common or harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) is found in the Kattegat and in the southern parts of the Baltic Proper, mainly along the Danish and Swedish coasts. There are about 4,000 harbour seals in the Kattegat, but the genetically distinct population in the Baltic Proper only numbers about 600. A century ago there may have been some 5,000 harbour seals in the Baltic Proper, but by the 1970s they numbered only just over 100.

The shadow of disease

A serious outbreak of phocine distemper in 1998 resulted in the death of approximately 60% of all the common seals along European coasts. The disease was first observed in the Kattegat, before it spread west and north as well as south into the Baltic Proper. Seal colonies in the southwestern Baltic were badly affected, but the virus did not cause gross mortality further into the Baltic Proper. Populations have recovered fairly well from the epidemic.