Harbor Seal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Harbor Seal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "With an estimated 5 million to 6 million individuals, the population is not threatened as a whole; most subspecies are secure in numbers with the Greenland, Hokkaidō and Baltic Sea populations being exceptions. Local populations have been reduced or eliminated through outbreaks of disease (especially the phocine distemper virus) and conflict with humans, both unintentionally and intentionally has also been linked to common seal declines. While it is legal to kill seals which are perceived to threaten fisheries in the United Kingdom, Norway and Canada, commercial hunting is illegal; the seals are also taken in subsistence hunting and accidentally as bycatch in fishing nets."