Range Description

Circumpolar and widespread in the Southern Hemisphere, Weddell seals are the world’s southern-most breeding mammal and occur in large numbers on fast ice, right up to the shoreline of the Antarctic continent. They also occur offshore in the pack ice zone north to the seasonally shifting limits of the Antarctic Convergence. A small population lives all year on South Georgia. Weddell seals are present at many islands along the Antarctic Peninsula that are seasonally ice-free. Vagrants have been recorded in many areas north of the Antarctic in South America, New Zealand and southern Australia (Kooyman 1981, Rice 1998, Bengtson 2002).