Guests will be seeing double in the seal exhibit at Brookfield Zoo after two gray seals were born Jan. 9 and 10.
The zoo expects the pups will make their debut to the public sometime early this spring.
For now, they’ll continue practicing their swimming skills with their mothers, Lily and Tasha, in a shallow pool that was specifically designed for them.
The pups won’t be little for long. They weighed 32 and 36 pounds at birth and have gained several pounds each day since. By the time they’re weaned at three weeks old, they’ll have quadrupled their weight. Gray seal pups need to grow quickly because once weaned, they’re on their own, and need to be able to fend for themselves as they go out to sea to hunt for food, according to Brookfield Zoo.
Once they’re weaned from their mothers, zoo staff will begin offering them fish, which will also help them establish relationships with marine mammal care staff.
Gray seal pups are born with long, white fur called lanugo, which is molted in two to four weeks and replaced with shorter, stiffer hair similar to adults’. The public most likely won’t get to see this in-person since the pups aren’t expected to be in their outdoor habitat, Pinniped Point, before their molting. But the zoo’s website and Facebook page will have updated photos and video.
This is Lily’s fourth successful birth, and it comes just in time for her birthday; she turns 16 Saturday. The other pup is 16-year-old Tasha’s first successful birth. The two moms are half-sisters and arrived at Brookfield Zoo in November 2007.
The pups’ father, 19-year-old Kiinaq, arrived at the zoo in 2018 after being stranded in the wild and deemed unreleasable when he was only a few months old.
“These are the first female gray seals to be born at Brookfield Zoo and are very significant because they will help us maintain a healthy and genetically diverse self-sustaining population for the species in professional care,” said Rita Stacey, curator of marine mammals for the Chicago Zoological Society and Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ manager of gray seal populations.
The pups do not have names yet.
