NOAA Probing 2019's AK Seal Dieoff; Native Hunters Report Seals Are So Skinny They Sink When Shot

An unusual mortality event, or UME, was designated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for ice seals in the Bering Strait region in 2019. With hundreds of ice seal strandings last year in the Bering Sea, researchers from NOAA Fisheries plan to set sail this April to find out more information about how ice seals are doing with less sea ice, and what might be causing so many to become sick or die.

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Ahmasuk sits on the Ice Seal Committee (ISC) as the representative for Kawerak and the Bering Strait Region. During their latest meeting last month Ahmasuk said he brought up an uncommon occurrence hunters have been seeing – seals sinking after they are shot.

“The reports were coming from St. Lawrence Island and so the reports were that a lot of the seals were very skinny. I guess the saying goes that fat floats. So, the fatter they are, the more apt they are to float, but also because there’s less sea ice, the water is less salty,” he said

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Besides dramatic sea ice reductions in the Bering Sea in recent years, ice seal carcasses were also showing up on the Bering and Chukchi Sea coastlines at a rate five to seven times higher than the yearly average. Boveng says this is what prompted NOAA to declare an Unusual Mortality Event for ice seals last year. According to Boveng the UME from 2011, which has been closed out even though the exact cause is undetermined, is not very similar to this current UME. The main differences between the two he says, is the UME from 2011 had symptoms of an abnormal molt like lesions and hair loss, while this recent one features signs of starvation.

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https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/02/04/questions-over-seal-stranding-and-deaths-in-bering-sea-set-the-scene-for-noaa-research-cruise/