The freshwater seals are seals which live in

freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...

bodies. The only exclusively freshwater seal species is the Baikal seal, locally named (). The others are the subspecies or colonies of regular saltwater seals. These include two subspecies of ringed seal: the

Ladoga seal The Ladoga ringed seal (russian: Ладожская нерпа; ''Pusa hispida ladogensis''), is a freshwater subspecies of the ringed seal (''Pusa hispida'') which are found entirely in Lake Ladoga in northwestern Russia. The subspecies evolve ...

and the

Saimaa ringed seal The Saimaa ringed seal (''Pusa hispida saimensis'', Finnish: ''Saimaannorppa'') is a subspecies of ringed seal (''Pusa hispida''). They are among the most endangered seals in the world, having a total population of only about 400 individuals. The ...

. Common seals (harbor seals) are known to enter estuaries and freshwater rivers in pursuit of their prey. Colonies of common seals live in some lakes, such as seals of Iliamna Lake, Alaska, trapped there a long time ago. There is also a subspecies called the

Ungava seal The Ungava Seal (''Phoca vitulina mellonae'') is a subspecies of harbor seal, endemic to a small series of freshwater lakes in the Ungava Peninsula, located in northern Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' ( ...

(''Phoca vitulina mellonae'') that comprises less than 300 individuals landlocked in the fresh water of

Lacs des Loups Marins Lacs des Loups Marins is a lake in the north of the province of Quebec in Canada. It is located about 150 km east of Hudson Bay and about 20 km northeast of Lac à l'Eau Claire. The name comes from its population of harbour seals (fr: lo ...

Petit Lac de Loups Marins Petite or petite may refer to: *Petit (crater), a small, bowl-shaped lunar crater on Mare Spumans * ''Petit'' (EP), a 1995 EP by Japanese singer-songwriter Ua * Petit (typography), another name for brevier-size type *Petit four * Petit Gâteau *P ...

, and

Lac Bourdel Lac is the resinous secretion of a number of species of lac insects, of which the most commonly cultivated is ''Kerria lacca''. Cultivation begins when a farmer gets a stick that contains eggs ready to hatch and ties it to the tree to be infes ...

in northern Quebec. California sea lions can also live in fresh water for periods of time, such as near Bonneville Dam, nearly up the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

. In 2004, a healthy sea lion was found sitting on a road in Merced County, California, almost a hundred miles upstream from the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

and half a mile from the San Joaquin River.

References

Pinnipeds Freshwater animals {{carnivora-stub