Weddell seal numbers in 2025 have declined sharply on Signy Island, part of the South Orkney Islands in the Southern Ocean, where British Antarctic Survey researchers have tracked seal populations for nearly 50 years to understand the impact of melting sea ice. (Photo by Michael Dunn/The Times)

“This grey adult male seal enjoys a good grin while lying on the beach”. (Photo by Michael Hutch/SplashdownDirect via Rex USA)

An Atlantic seal pup lies amongst the rocks at St Martin's Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales, Britain October 8, 2018. Seal pups are born with fluffy white non-waterproof coats which they moult out in their fourth week. (Photo by Rebecca Naden/Reuters)

Inquisitive elephant seal pups venture towards a photographer on South Georgia, an uninhabited island near Antarctica early July 2022. The seals are not used to seeing humans and shuffled closer to Charlotte Rhodes rather than shying away. (Photo by Charlotte Rhodes/Media Drum Images)

A grey seal basks under a rainbow on a beach on the Lincolnshire coast, England on November 21, 2017. (Photo by Sean Weekly/Caters News Agency)

This photo of an elephant seal and Gentoo penguin shot by Andrew James in Yankee Harbour, Antarctica. (Photo by Andrew James/Travel Photographer of the Year)

A seal infront of a passing cruise ship on the shore between Sandhaven village and Fraserburgh in Scotland in August 2023. (Photo by Mark Grant/Caters News Agency)

Isabella Busse, 6, walks through floodwater near the Seal Beach Pier during a storm in Seal Beach, Calif., Sunday, January 22, 2017. The heavy downpour on Sunday drenched Orange County in one of the heaviest storms of the year. Fast-moving floodwaters swept through California mountain communities and residents fled homes below hillsides scarred by wildfires as the third in the latest series of storms brought a deluge Sunday and warnings about damaging mudslides. (Photo by Ana Venegas/The Orange County Register via AP Photo)