Seal haul-outs

This map viewer shows the distribution of seal haul-outs along the Icelandic coastline. Data are available for free download on the National Land Survey of Iceland’s download portal, together with other data from the IINH.

The language of this resource is Icelandic, but clicking on individual data points will yield English summaries.

Map viewer

Metadata

Download

Two species of seal live year-round in Icelandic waters. These are harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) and grey seals (Halichoerus grypus). Mapping of their haul-outs is based on population count data from the last several decades. Regular population counts began for harbour seals in 1980 and for grey seals in 1982. The data provide a broad overview of the distribution and size of seal haul-outs around Iceland.

The map viewer shows the distribution of a total of 430 harbour seal haul-outs in 93 counting zones and 86 grey seal haul-outs in 19 counting zones. The accuracy of the mapping corresponds to a scale of 1:25,000.

For more detailed discussion of seal haul-outs in Iceland, see Selalátur við strendur Íslands (Fjölrit Náttúrufræðistofnunar No. 56, in Icelandic with English summary, PDF format).