Traditional Ecological Knowledge

Indigenous cultures across the Arctic trace the origins of sea mammals to ᓴᓐᓇ (Sedna, or Arnakuagsak), the Inuit goddess of the sea and marine animals. There are many stories of how Sedna created the beings of the sea. One, as described by the Inuit Art Foundation in referencing contemporary artists’ works, says Sedna’s ”fingers were cut off as she clung to the side of her father’s kayak and eventually became the creatures of the sea.”

Mashop & Squant

The Wampanoag worldview, as expressed through the Mashop and Squant transformation stories, describes a fluid relationship between humans and the rest of creation. Clan identity among tribal nations expresses kinship of humans and animals; many Wampanoag clans are drawn from ocean beings.

Biological Science

There are 34 species of pinnipeds in the oceans of the world today. Some, like the crabeater seal and the harp seal, number in the millions. Some, like the Hawaiian monk seal, teeter on the verge of extinction. In evolutionary history, there are more than 50 extinct species, and scientists are continuing to make new discoveries in the fossil record.  

If you look at the worldwide distribution of pinnipeds today, they are in every ocean of the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. In the Indian Ocean, there are not currently any resident pinniped populations, but Southern Ocean species will wander through those waters. 

Since pinnipeds were “named” by German naturalist Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger in 1811, people have debated the relationships of pinnipeds to each other and to other mammals.  

Were they all descended from a common ancestor? Were the eared seals more closely related to bears, the true seals more closely related to weasles?  

The proto-seal, researchers agree, was a carnivore living in the Arctic.  Maybe an early weasel species, maybe an early bear species.  Whether mustelid or ursid, this small mammal moved between land and shore, largely in fresh water.  But for many years, the “missing link”  that showed the movement into a largely marine environment, in which the mammals would spend most of their lives at sea and only periodically touch upon land, was missing.

Some clarity has emerged since the 1990s, as both researchers studying the bones and the genetics of pinnipeds came to agree that one ancestor is common to all pinniped.  But when and where did that ancestor live?

This drawing represents what scientists THINK the ancestor of modern seals looked like. Read on for more…..