Do seals drink seawater?

While they probably do drink a bit of seawater from time to time that’s not how seals get most of their water. Mainly, their water comes from the fish they eat.

Seals spend most of their lives surrounded by seawater but they don’t drink much of it. Like other mammals, the salt content of their blood is about one third as salty as seawater. So, if they drank a large amount of seawater the salt content in their blood would quickly rise and they’d get very ill or die.

They get their freshwater from the fish, squid, octopus, abalone, and other things they eat. When food is broken down and used for energy one of the by-products is water. This is generally all the water they need. Dolphins, manatees, sea otters and other marine mammals do this as well. Still, seals have been seen occasionally eating snow, especially during times when they aren’t catching much fish.