Conclusion
The use of SealNet facial recognition software to identify individual harbor seals has multiple future applications to aid in decision-making for conservation efforts, including assessments of seal abundance, evaluation of site fidelity within and across coastal regions, determination of trends in migration patterns, and the exploration of patterns in social behavior among harbor seals at haul-out sites. The ease and wealth of data that can be collected with non-invasive photography, coupled with the predictive ability of the SealNet to identify individuals, provides researchers with a robust toolkit that has the potential to transform ecological studies of wild populations of harbor seals.