This was a book that I had laying around and even though I started on the book I would get distracted by another. Luckily I chose to read this book for the Reading Challenge 2015 as a book owned but never read.

This is an interesting although somewhat outdated book about the Alaskan fur seal. The author does a majestic job of weaving you into the story of not only the year for the Golden Seal, a breeding female, but also into the lives of some of her peers. While reading through each month you are also introduced into glimpses of the lives of others such as the bull that impregnated her with her second pup, young seals captured in the rookery for human experiments, her wandering first year pup when he leaves Tolstoi and so many more creatures.

And twisting around all this are the acts both good and bad of man towards this creature. You see the devastation, the cruel necessity of learning, the needless slaughter and torment. There is a chance to see the past of man slowly fading as they give way to the newer times and of course the pompous officials always arguing but never getting around.

This book was beautifully written with enough facts to educate but presented in such a way that you aren't flooded over by the non-fiction. At the same time he is careful and detailed around his writing so you are taken to the home of the fur seal both when land-bound and in the sea.

What made me enjoy the book so much more was also the emotional depth even though the creature wasn't given much of emotional depth. It is nostalgic, primitive and yet hauntingly lovely. It made me cringe and anger at stupid killings of so much animals in the name of science as well as for management needs and fur. This book is an eye-opener whether good or bad is up to you.... ( )

A companion book to The Year of the Whale, The Year of the Seal describes the life of an Alaskan fur-seal and its companions. Most of the book tells about one female seal, and what she does from day to day in the different seasons; she comes to land to breed and raise a pup, leaves it periodically to go fishing in the ocean, then roams widely through the seas but returns again to land the following year. The story also follows the doings of one of her pups, and a little bit of the adult male or bull seal as well, to show how their habits differ. Interwoven with the seals' lives are the activities of men, and this is where it gets troublesome. There are hunters who "harvest" the seals' skins for their thick warm fur, and biologists who count their numbers and study their behavior. Their main motive for doing so is to determine how many seals can be taken each year without decimating the population. But they also do some studies just (it seems) for knowledge' sake. The seals suffer and die of natural causes as well as by the hands of men. It's all quite brutal. And yet the seals are full of life, apparently vigorous and healthy, and there are many passages beautifully describing their grace in the water, their speed and agility chasing fish, the quiet and tender moments between mother and pup, etc.

from the Dogear Diary ( )

A great companion work to the year of the whale ( )