text: The bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus) is generally solitary outside the breeding season, or at most traveling in groups of 3 to 5 individuals.  Bearded seals are mostly bottom feeders, foraging for critters such as cod, flounder and sculpins, as well as clams, crabs and even octopus.\n\nDuring breeding season they can form groups of up to 50.  They don't form harems as many other seals do, but males may compete for mates by fighting with tooth and the claws they use to scrape holes in the ice to make breathing holes.\n\nThey are very vocal for seals, producing chirps, whistles and even melodious songs which can be heard for considerable distances under the water.\n\nPolar bears and humans are their chief predators, and a few are eaten by orca as well.  Bearded seals have little commercial value, but a few thousand a year are harvested for their meat and their hides are used for nonskid boot soles.\n\nIn addition to their claws, bearded seals will ram holes in the ice with their heads.\n\nBeing bottom feeders, they tend to found in shallow waters (at most 600 feet deep) where they can reach their food.  They prefer areas with thin or broken ice cover.  Some ice provides them with areas they can get out of the water and rest, but too much ice is too hard to break through to make breathing/escape holes.  \n\nThey are found in the portions of the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic Oceans where it freezes over in winter, and ice floes are present.  It's estimated that there are about 500,000 bearded seals worldwide.