Tero Härkönen

TL;DR: New and revised data for the phocine distemper virus (PDV) epidemics that resulted in the deaths of more than 23 000 harbour seals Phoca vitulina in 1988 and 30,000 in 2002 are presented and it is suggested that grey seal populations could act as reservoirs for PDV if infection rates in sympatric species are lower than in harbour seals.

TL;DR: The 2008 IUCN review of the status of the world's mammals identified marine mammals (IUCN 2008) as disproportionally threatened and data poor compared to their terrestrial counterparts, and their status was noted as a particular concern as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: Development in the Baltic ringed and grey seal populations during the past century is reconstructed using uniquely detailed hunting records from the Nordic countries and published data on demographic parameters.

TL;DR: The disease that killed more than 18 000 harbour seals Phoca vitulina and a small number of grey seals Halichoerus grypus in the North Sea, the Kattegat-Skagerrak and the southern Baltic in 1988 has now been well described for all afflicted areas, and the pathological and virological findings are in good concordance from all seal groups studied.

TL;DR: Dentine and cementum layers have been used with success in age determinations of many species of pinnipeds, but so far no reliable method has been described for age determination of European harbour seals.