A grey seal pup was born on Feb. 17 at Brookfield Zoo, the zoo announced Friday.
This is the first grey seal pup born at the zoo since 2020, and he is expected to make his public debut this spring.
The pup will remain behind the scenes for the next month and a half with his 11-year-old mother, Georgie, while he works on his swimming skills.
Born at 35 pounds, the pup is growing quickly, according to Mark Gonka, associate director of marine mammal care and conservation, having gained nearly 15 pounds in his first week. Over the next few weeks, the pup could easily gain about 100 pounds and be more than 500 pounds when fully grown. Once weaned, he’ll be introduced to a diet of fish.
“It’s so crazy how quickly they grow and how wide they grow,” Gonka said. “He just hit 50 pounds this morning and it wouldn’t shock me if we came in tomorrow and he’s around 55 pounds.”
Like any newborn, the pup is “very focused on his mom,” Gonka said.
“He sleeps a lot ... eats a lot and then every once in a while he’ll flap around the habitat,” he said.
Brookfield Zoo is happy to announce its newest addition—a grey seal pup born February 17. The male pup, who weighed nearly 35 pounds at birth, will remain behind the scenes for approximately the next month and a half with his 11-year-old mother, Georgette, nicknamed “Georgie.”🧵 pic.twitter.com/Ch7YYl5f84
— Brookfield Zoo (@brookfield_zoo) February 23, 2024
Grey seal pups are born with silky, white fur called lanugo, which molts when they’re about a month old. As the lanugo molts, the pup will have patchy tufts of fur, before it is replaced with shorter, dark hair.
This is Georgie’s first time experiencing motherhood since her 2020 arrival at Brookfield Zoo. As a pup, she was found on an island in Georgetown, Maine, in 2013 and deemed to be fully blind in her left eye and functionally blind in her right.
“Georgie has been a wonderful mom,” Gonka said. “So it’s a really cool experience for her, and for us, to see how good of a mom she’s turned into.”
The pup’s father is 23-year-old Kiinaq, who arrived at the zoo in 2018 after he was found stranded in the wild and deemed unreleasable when he was only a few months old. This is the third pup Kiinaq has fathered since his arrival.
There are only 22 grey seals in seven U.S. zoos and aquariums; Brookfield has six. When ready, the pup will join his mother and father, as well as Celia and Peanut (two seals born in 2020), and Fisher in the seal exhibit. Fisher, around 2 years old, likely will be one of the pup’s first playmates, Gonka said.
The pup is not yet named. The zoo’s website and social media will have updates as he grows.
