Alaska Geographic is an award-winning series that presents the people, places, and wonders of Alaska to the world. Over the past 30 years, Alaska Geographic has earned its reputation as the publication for those who love Alaska. The series boasts more than 100 books to date, featuring communities from Barrow to Ketchikan, animals from bears to dinosaurs, history from the Russian explorers to today, and natural phenomena from the aurora to glaciers. Written by leading experts in their fields, these books are illustrated throughout with world-class photography and include colorful maps for reference.
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Lloyd Lowry and Kathy Frost are biologists from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and have been studying Alaska’s marine mammals since 1975. This husband and wife team contributed the chapter on seals, which focuses on their research into nutrition, natural history and ecology of Alaska’s seals.
Tom Loughlin wrote the chapters on fur seals and sea lions, and is the leader of the Alaska Ecosystem Program at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory, part of the National Marine Fisheries Service. This program focuses on Steller sea lions and northern fur seals.
Jim Bodkin is a research scientist with the Alaska Biological Science Center in Anchorage. He began his career with sea otters in California in 1980 and has studied them throughout the northern Pacific Ocean. He currently leads the Coastal Ecosystem Research Team whose work has focused on sea otters and nearshore marine communities.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
As the boat cruised Icy Strait near Glacier Bay in Southeast Alaska, a life-and-death drama played out off its port and starboard sides. A pod of killer whales cut the water off its port side, while a herd of Steller sea lions hugged the rock shore off its starboard, swimming in the opposite direction and hoping to avoid the whales’ teeth-filled jaws. This act could occur in many locations along Alaska’s lengthy coastline. The North Pacific and Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas shelter a variety of marine mammals, including seals, sea lions and sea otters. Alaskans and visitors have observed these animals from onshore for centuries, but once the animals dive beneath the ocean’s waves, they enter a world hidden from an observer’s view. Questions about their undersea life have always intrigued people. Does a harbor seal spend its whole life in one area? What route do fur seals take during migration? Why is the Stellar sea lion population continuing to decline? Do sea otters really use rocks as tools?
Biologists research these questions and many more. Marine mammals are less visible than their terrestrial cousins, and more difficult to track. New technologies, however, are providing easier, more efficient means of learning, for example, how deep a seal dives, and for how long it remains under water; a seal blubber analysis reveals what the animal has been eating; and information about weather patterns such as El Niño guide scientists in their understanding of how water temperature affects the foods that Steller sea lions consume. Simple observation teaches researchers about the daily lives of these animals: how much they sleep, what time of year they mate, how often throughout the day a pup nurses.
Marine mammal biologists come together in these pages to discuss Alaska’s five main seal species (harbor, spotted, ribbon, bearded and ringed), northern fur seals, Steller sea lions and sea otters. Their expertise adds depth and clarity to the complexities of these animals’ lives.
Seals, fur seals, sea lions and sea otters all belong to the same order Carnivora under the class Mammalia. Confusion often arises over the classification of the fur seal. They are not "true seals," as they have visible ears like the sea lion and in fact belong to the same family. Fur seals are placed here in a separate chapter. The species of seals covered in this issue are in the family Phocidae (earless seals), while northern fur seals and Steller sea lions belong to the family Otariidae (eared seals) having visible, inch-long, furled ears. Sea otters are members of the Mustelidae family. Scientists further classify the seals, northern fur seal and Steller sea lion as the suborder Pinnipedia, meaning "fin-footed," while the sea otter belongs to the suborder Fissipedia, or "split-footed." Though the three families look different from each other, and possess different acquatic adaptations, they are related.
Biologists think marine mammals evolved from terrestrial ancestors through a series of adaptations to life in the sea. Marine mammals live in all the oceans of the world. Some eat only plants; some eat other animals. Like land mammals, marine mammals breathe air through lungs, are warm-blooded, bear live offspring and suckle their young. For hydration, most marine mammals rely on water in their food rather than drinking fresh water; they produce urine that is saltier than the sea.
Read along as ALASKA GEOGRAPHIC® takes a closer look at Alaska’s seals, sea lions and sea otters.
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