Jonathan Petersson
Well-Known Member
On a visit to SeaWorld Abu Dhabi I saw that they currently have a Ringed Seal that lives with their walrus herd. Is the only full time mixed species habitat with walrus or are their others out there?
Walrus currently in captivity
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Seeing as walruses are known to occasionally prey on smaller pinnipeds, that definitely seems risky…
Here’s a paper on an incident between Walrus and Ringed Seals in Svalbard. It shows a correlation between a fear response in Ringed Seals and the presence of Walrus’s.
https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/download/2397/5647/
Chimelong Ocean Kingdom has Spotted and Bearded Seals in its Walrus exhibit.
Jonathan Petersson
Well-Known Member
I'm assuming it is different based on wild vs. captive individuals especially with so much smaller groupings then what you would see in the wild. It will be interesting to see how it turns out though.
- Chengdu Polar Ocean Park houses bull Lucifer with a seal (I don't know the species, I'm sorry!)
- Grandview Aquarium houses bull Harry with a South American sea lion
- Tierpark Hagenbeck houses bull Odin with fur seals
- Moscow Zoo houses their cows Rosie and Raisa with a seal
- SeaWorld San Diego housed cow Slowpoke with a California sea lion for a while, not sure if that is still ongoing?
- Chimelong Ocean Kingdom's breeding herd are housed with seals
- Qingdao Haichang Polar Ocean Park has housed their bull with a seal in the past, and currently some species of sea lion (I have not been able to get a clear view of it but it seems to be a South American sea lion)
Chengdu only has spotted seals and gray seals, Qingdao used to have walruses and gray seals together, but now the exhibit is for steller sea lion.
Thank you! They must house their bull with a spotted seal then, it's definitely not a gray
Do you possibly have dates and pictures for the gray seal pairing at Qingdao? Thank you for sharing this, I had no idea they'd swapped exhibits! Their bull was still with a sea lion this February, and the previous seal was housed with him up until around 2022
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I'm from Qingdao, and I'm pretty sure it used to be gray seals that were mixed with walruses. Later on, this exhibition area kept bearded seals, and after the bearded seals were no longer on display, I remember keeping steller sea lions, which have now been replaced by walruses and male South American sea lions.
Thank you so much for the photo and additional information! I must have misread your initial post so I apologize for misunderstanding, I thought the walrus had recently been swapped for Stellers instead of the oppositeThis photo was taken in 2019.In front of the gray seal is a walrus.
Do you happen to know their bull's name?
Someone was in Chengdu last November and I saw the pictures and it was indeed a mix of walrus and a gray seal on display.
Thank you for that correction! The only clear picture I have is a few years older but is for sure a gray! The more recent photos I was trying to rely on were definitely tricking my already poor vision haha -- so sorry about that y'all, but exciting to learn nonetheless
Going back with corrections on the previous list of the current mixed-species exhibits, thank you Little orca and Westcoastperson!
- Chengdu Polar Ocean Park, bull with a gray seal
- Grandview Aquarium, bull with a South American sea lion
- Tierpark Hagenbeck, bull with a breeding colony of South American fur seals
- Moscow Zoo, cows with a true seal (anyone with another species ID?)
- SeaWorld San Diego, cow with a California sea lion (not sure if still paired)
- Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, breeding herd with spotted seals
- Qingdao Haichang Polar Ocean Park, bull with South American sea lion (previously a gray seal)
Two more recent transfers:
- 0.1 Sora from Toba Aquarium to Kinosaki Marine World on March 4th, 2025
- 0.1 Mii from Toba Aquarium to Umitamago (she's back on habitat today, assuming she arrived the 13th or 14th of March)
0.1 Kleo (Chimelong Ocean Kingdom) gave birth to her calf recently. I haven't seen where the park has released any further information just yet
Park update via douyin: Baby was born June 8th weighing 148 lb and is named "ŌŌ" 喔喔
Correction, baby's name is "WoWo" (I was using the phonetic transcription generated by Google Translate previously)
He's a male and being handraised on killer whale milk from Chimelong's pod! The formula Chimelong was using wasn't meeting his needs and the killer whale milk proved to be a better match from nutritional analysis.
He has been on display in the Deep Blue Research Lab already (right by the walrus habitat and pinniped theater), I assume that's still ongoing
That's something you don't read everyday. Wonder what they were using that was insufficient enough they turned to killer whale milk of all things.
I assume this is Killer Whale milk replacer, and that nobody is actually milking an Orca?
No; it is actual milk directly from their killer whale pod.
They show the process here: https://v.douyin.com/Pq7T8ZdrGzs/
Here's a video from SeaWorld if Douyin is inaccessible for you:
