Incidental Sighting of a Ribbon Seal (<i>Phoca fasciata</i>) in the Western Beaufort Sea

Abstract

On 29 August 1983, an adult ribbon seal (Phoca fasciata) was seen by one of us (EIB) resting on ice in the western Beaufort Sea (71 41 N, 152 41 W), during the course of an aerial survey. The seal did not move from the ice when over-flown at 200 m, and was positively identified by its distinctive pelage. Ribbon seals are commonly found along the ice front in the Bering Sea in winter and early spring, then disperse in late spring as the sea ice breaks up and presumably become solitary and pelagic with poorly known distribution in the summer (Wilke, 1954; Naito and Konno, 1979; Burns, 1970, 1981; Stewart and Everett, 1983). Ribbon seals are rarely seen or taken by Eskimo hunters from coastal villages north of the Bering Strait, and sightings at Wainwright and Point Barrow in the northern Chukchi Sea have been described as "most unusual" (Burns, 1981). ... The observed ribbon seal may have drifted north and east with the ice from the Chukchi Sea during the summer. To our knowledge, this report constitutes the northeasternmost record of a ribbon seal.