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Diet
The primary food of the harp seal is small fish, especially those that congregate in large schools, according to the "National Audubon Society Field Guide to Mammals." Harp seals dine on herring, capelin, Arctic cod, redfish, plaice and Greenland halibut. Also on a harp seal's menu are krill and shrimp.
Obtaining Food
Harp seals sometimes make yearly migrations totaling as many as 6,000 miles both ways. Biologists believe these journeys coincide with the movement of one of their preferred foods, the codfish. When hunting prey, the harp seal has the ability to dive to depths of 900 feet. It holds its breath and remains underwater during hunts for as long as 15 minutes.
Pup's Diet
Baby harp seals face a quick transition from their mother's milk to solid food. The mother nurses her newborn pup for about 2 weeks. The baby gains weight at a rapid rate during this period, most reaching 90 to 100 lbs. The mother then abandons her pup, who doesn't eat at all for the next 2 weeks. The baby's weight drops to as low as 50 lbs. during this time as pups learn to hunt for their own meals. Baby seals subsist mostly on krill and other aquatic vertebrates before graduating to larger creatures, such as fish.
Time Frame
After giving birth to a pup, usually from the middle of February into April, a female harp seal weans it and then mates once more. After mating, the female enters what the Marine Bio website describes as an "intense" feeding period during which it eats as much as it can. Once this period ends, the female starts to molt. During their molting period females don't eat at all and males don't eat much.