The ribbon seal is a mid-sized seal species found throughout the Arctic and sub-arctic.
Young ribbon seals look like young harp seals. In the past, they were hunted too close to extinction, but Russia banned their hunting in 1969 and the population has bounced back to 250,000.
In March 2008, the USA government considered listing this species on the endangered list, unfortunately the government decided that climate change did not threaten the sea ice to remain – as a result they decided not to list the species IT IS TOTALLY RIDICULOUS THE USA GOVERNMENTS POSITION. In 2009 it was sued to reconsider, and in 2013 it decided once again that listing was not required.
