The size of the global population of Bearded Seals is not known (Kovacs 2002). Crude published estimates for parts of the bearded seal’s range include: 200,000-250,000 in the Sea of Okhotsk, including 60,000-75,000 off eastern Sakhalin Island (1968 to1990) and 250,000-300,000 in the Bering Sea, including 83,000-87,000 in the western Bering Sea (Fedoseev 2000). A minimum estimate for Canadian waters of 190,000 animals was suggested by Cleator (1996), based on data collected over a 35-year period. Angliss and Outlaw (2005) state that there are no current reliable population estimates for the Bering Chukchi stock of Bearded Seals. No estimates exist for the population in the Atlantic Ocean (Reijnders et al. 1993), or the region from the Barents to the Chukchi Sea. Population trends are not known.

Stable