Gray Seal Pupping Cam - Matinicus Seal Island

Wow! It is pupping time for the Gray Seal population. Matinicus Seal Island is the place to be if you are a gray seal! Check out the WEB CAM! Awesome:-0

Map location of the Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge, near Matinicus.
Click on the picture for a larger view.

Matinicus Seal Island - Click on picture for a larger view.

Here is the information from the Web Cam site:

During the shortest days of the year, hundreds of gray seals clamber onto Seal Island for an extraordinary mass breeding event. At this second largest of just four U.S. colonies, the seals come ashore for just a few weeks to give birth and feed their pups. The 300 pound females have one pup per year, with the peak of births in mid January. At birth, the compelling pups are dressed in a suit of thick, white fur (lanugo) which they begin molting at about three weeks of age.

Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge is a 65 acre sanctuary managed in collaboration with the Audubon Seabird Restoration Program (Project Puffin), which operates a summer field station here. The program has successfully restored Maine’s largest colonies of Atlantic Puffins and Common and Arctic Terns. From May through August, the seabirds can be viewed on live cameras operated by explore.org.

For over 200 years Seal Island was also a summer campsite for fishermen harvesting herring, cod, lobster. Excessive seabird hunting for food and feathers led to the loss of the puffin colony here. From the 1940s to 1960s the Navy used the island as a bombing target. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acquired the island in 1972. The island is closed to public landing because of the unexploded ordnance and unique wildlife. Today, seals face new threats including entanglement in fishing gear, chemical and plastic pollution and illegal hunting. They are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.