A tumble from sun-warmed rock to cold green water. In a heartbeat, they vanish beneath the surface, transformed from sleepy beach-goers to effortless underwater hunters.
These are seals—migwat, in Kwak'wala—the shapeshifters of British Columbia’s coastlines, whose presence is so common today that it’s easy to forget just how extraordinary their story really is.
Their paleo history is written in siltstone and sandstone, in ancient sea cliffs and bone beds. It is a story more than 30 million years in the making.
While not as fossil-rich in pinnipeds as Washington or Oregon, Vancouver Island holds scattered but significant evidence of ancient seals and sea lions.
Fossil Pinnipeds of Vancouver Island
- Pleistocene seal vertebrae and ribs in glacial deposits near Comox, Qualicum, and Port Alberni
- Marine mammal bone fragments in uplifted beach terraces (particularly around Quadra Island, Muir Creek Foreshore on the Saanich Peninsula, and Nanoose Bay)
- Holocene Indigenous middens preserving thousands of years of seal bones—Harbour seal, fur seal, and occasional sea lion—informing both ecology and human history
- Rare but notable Miocene marine mammal material in the Carmanah and Nitinat formations
These bones—though often fragmentary—confirm that pinnipeds have been part of Vancouver Island’s marine ecosystems for hundreds of thousands of years, if not longer.
Pinnipeds—seals, sea lions, and walruses—are members of Carnivora, sharing ancestry with bears and mustelids. Their earliest proto-pinniped relatives roamed the temperate forests of the Oligocene.
These land-dwelling carnivores still walked on feet, not flippers, but were beginning to explore a new ecological niche: coastal fishing.
Fossils such as Enaliarctos—a 23-million-year-old “walking seal” from the Pacific Northwest—show the transition spectacularly. In Enaliarctos, we see:
- Fully functional limbs still able to support body weight
- But with broad, paddle-like bones hinting at aquatic propulsion
- Teeth adapted for grasping slippery prey
- A streamlined skull with enlarged eye orbits—early upgrades for life underwater
Over millions of years, these transitional forms gave rise to the modern pinnipeds—masters of aquatic agility with powerful flippers, torpedo-shaped bodies, and exquisitely sensitive whiskers capable of detecting the wake of a fleeing fish.
Where I live in British Columbia on Vancouver Island, we have two native extant seal species:
Pacific Harbour Seal, Phoca vitulina richardii
- The most familiar and abundant—those spotted, dog-like seals lounging on logs and kelp beds.
- They inhabit every corner of the BC coast, from Haida Gwaii to Victoria’s Inner Harbour.
- Once when I was scuba diving near Victoria, one swam along side me in a clearly playful way interested to see what kind of creature I was and what I was doing.
Today, the population is estimated at 105,000 to 110,000 individuals. That's a tenfold increase and one of the greatest conservation success stories in Canada, the Pacific Northwest, and the entire pinniped world.
Northern Elephant Seal, Mirounga angustirostris
Once nearly wiped out by 19th-century hunting, they now appear sporadically but increasingly along BC shores—particularly around Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.
If the Harbour seal rebound is impressive, the elephant seal comeback is a resurrection.
In the 1880s, hunters reduced northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris, to 20–100 individuals, likely surviving only on remote Guadalupe Island, Mexico.
Today, over 200,000 elephant seals exist worldwide. Along the British Columbia coast, sightings have steadily risen. We see them basking on the shores around Vancouver Island. Moulting individuals are a regular sight at Race Rocks, Barkley Sound, and Haida Gwaii.
At dawn on Hornby Island's Collishaw Point, the mist lifts as the tide sighs across the sandstone. Before you see them, you hear them. There is a soft shuffle… a splash… the quick, wet breath of a surfacing seal.
These communal gatherings—haul-outs—are the social centres of pinniped life. Dozens drape themselves across warm rock shelves, their mottled fur glistening.
Underwater, the transformation is dramatic.
Here, seals move with liquid precision, weaving effortlessly through giant kelp forests, chasing schooling herring, sand lance, and perch, and using their hypertactile whiskers to detect minute currents. It is a sight best observed in a drysuit as our waters here are icy cold but the view is worth it to see these quiet hunters of the coast.
Seal pups, turn the sea into a playground—darting, pirouetting, and often approaching divers or kayakers out of sheer curiosity. They are slowly reclaiming ancestral territory—massive, whiskered, loud, and utterly magnificent.
While our Harbour Seals and Elephant Seals are a regular occurance, the coast occasionally plays host to wayward Arctic wanderers such as Ribbon seals, Bearded seals and Ringed seals.
These remain rare, usually tied to unusual ice or climate events. Harbour seals are now so widespread in the Salish Sea that boaters, kayakers, and beachcombers often see them daily—lounging on kelp rafts, balancing on tidal rocks, or slipping through emerald water with barely a ripple.
Taken together, the fossil record from Vancouver Island, Washington, and Oregon reveals that this coastline has hosted pinnipeds for at least 25–30 million years. Early proto-seals evolved here—making the Pacific Northwest a cradle of pinniped evolution. Modern Harbour seals and Elephant seals represent only the latest chapters of a deep, ongoing story.
From Oligocene walking-seals to Miocene sea lions to today’s flourishing Harbour seal colonies, the Pacific coast has been home to these marine mammals through ice ages, warm epochs, shifting continents, and massive oceanic changes. This has always been their home.
And thanks to careful stewardship, it will continue to be.
