![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/seals-congregate-at-White-Rock-pier-November-2025-3.png\")
Seals congregate in White Rock in November 2025. (Suzanne Sevigny Image)<\/p>\nA rare phenomenon off the White Rock pier has locals leaning to look over the railing: as many as 200 harbour seals, long thought to be solitary at sea, are congregating in Semiahmoo Bay.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a sight that has little precedent, and one biologist tells CityNews this behaviour at this scale hasn\u2019t been documented in academic literature before.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow close they are together, 90 in just one giant group, that\u2019s pretty unique,\u201d said Dr. Cindy Elliser, who researches marine mammals.<\/p>\n
Elliser figures the animals are here because there\u2019s a strong food source \u2014 which the masses of anchovies under the pier would support \u2014 but it isn\u2019t entirely clear why this is happening.<\/p>\n
Seals congregate in White Rock in November 2025. (Suzanne Sevigny Image)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know much about the in-water behaviour of harbour seals,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of research is done on when they haul out on land, so we don\u2019t know too much what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elliser says she has never seen anything like it, but one local says this isn\u2019t the first time he has witnessed this \u2014 although he says it is rare.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been living out here for 40 years,\u201d said nearby resident Norman Orr.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve only experienced it just maybe three times in all that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suzanne Sevigny lives by the water and says she\u2019s been documenting the seal presence for the past couple of weeks. She says the numbers have been steadily growing, with as many as 95 in a single pod at one time.<\/p>\n
And they\u2019ve become a hit with the locals.<\/p>\n
![\"Seals](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/seals-congregate-at-White-Rock-pier-November-2025-2.png\")
Seals congregate in White Rock in November 2025. (Suzanne Sevigny Image)<\/p>\n
Mitch George is a retired fisherman and says he\u2019s only seen this kind of activity far afield.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually you need to go to the Queen Charlottes [Haida Gwaii], or the west coast of Vancouver Island to see something like this,\u201d George said.<\/p>\n
The explosion of biodiversity on the water \u2014 with seals, sea lions, and several species of birds close by \u2014 is a spectacle, and the amount of information it generates can make a real difference for researchers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more eyes on the water, the better. If you can see something, you can share it with researchers, and then we can know what questions to ask,\u201d Elliser said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t know that this was a thing until we were out there looking and saw it, and so this adds to that data. Community scientists, just by being out and observing, can help scientists be able to collect the data that they normally wouldn\u2019t be able to get.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rare phenomenon off the White Rock pier has locals leaning to look over the railing: as many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-287546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}