Harbor Seal Pups

Looking at the chart shown in the results section, it is clear the most frequent behaviors are bark, yell, and yelp. The correlation between these three behaviors is that all of them are vocal behaviors. Beginning with the behavior of barking, barking is a very typical form of communication for seals and revolves around establishing and defending territory and mates (SOURCE). Harbor seals, usually males, will bark at other males in order to create territorial boundaries among themselves. These territorial boundaries are not created in order increase access to food because the diet of the harbor seal consists primarily of fish, which are located only in the water. This means that seals secure territories in order to secure mates. There is a competition between males to acquire mates and reproduce and it is for this reason that it's so important for males to be territorial.
Yelling is used in the same way as barking is by males, which is to establish territory and guard mates. On the contrary, female harbor seal, which are the primary caretakers of seal pups, yell in order to communicate with their young. Lastly, a yelp is a behavior that is only displayed by seal pups and its purpose is to help the pup communicate with its mother and primary caretaker. Its high frequency can be attributed the few seal pups that were part of seal group that was observed on October 17th. A seal pup yelp almost always came in multiples and rarely only one at a time, so this attributed to its high frequency. In conclusion, the three most frequent behaviors are all forms of vocalization. Given that the harbor seal social structure is heavily reliant on vocalization in order to communicate with one another (SOURCE), the high frequency in which these vocal behaviors occurred is to be