A new bundle of joy will get to call the Brookfield Zoo home from now on.
The Brookfield Zoo announced Friday it had welcomed an unnamed grey seal pup born Feb. 17. The pup will spend about the next month and a half behind the scenes at the zoo bonding with his mother, an 11-year-old seal named Georgette, who has lived at the zoo since 2020.
The pup was fathered by a 23-year-old seal named Kiinaq, who has lived at the zoo since 2018. Both Georgette and Kiinaq were found stranded in the wild as pups and “deemed unreleasable,” meaning they’ve spent their entire lives in captivity. According to the zoo, because both of the pup’s parents are of wild descent, his birth represents an increase in the genetic diversity in captive grey seals in North America; just 22 grey seals live in captivity across seven accredited zoos and aquariums in the U.S., six of which live at the Brookfield Zoo.
The zoo said the pup was born weighing 35 pounds and gained 15 pounds in his first week of life, and he could “easily gain about 100 pounds” while his mother nurses him over the coming weeks. Zoo guests or anyone interested in keeping up with the pup’s progress should keep an eye on the zoo’s social media, where it plans to post updates.
