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South American Fur Seal (Arctocephalus australis, Zimmerman 1783)

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Ecology and Conservation of Pinnipeds in Latin America

Abstract

The South American fur seal is distributed on both sides of South America along the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans mostly in sympatry with the South American sea lion. However, there is gap of distribution between 43°S and 29°S in the Pacific coast of approximately 1600 km. The total population was estimated at 320,000 individuals, and the species is considered as Least Concern in the IUCN red list, but the Peruvian population is classified as Vulnerable. Genetic and morphological comparisons between the Atlantic and the Peruvian fur seals indicated that they could be distinct evolutionarily significant units. The species is polygynous and sexually dimorphic, with males being larger and heavier than females. Breeding occurs during the austral summer, from December to early January. Longevity is around 20 years for both sexes in wild and captive life. The South American fur seal is an opportunistic species that predates mainly on pelagic species of fish, squids, and crustaceans, some of them of commercial importance. Fur seals were used by aboriginal people as far as 8000 YBP and since the eighteenth century by Europeans, who drove them to the brink of extinction. After the cease of hunting, the stocks were slowly recovering at least on the Atlantic coast. In most of the coastal settlement sites where fur seals occur, they share the places with South American sea lions, although there is some differentiation in the use of space. The fur seals prefer places of difficult access, rocky areas or more steep, and the sea lions occupy sandy or boulder beaches. At present, there is no major threat for South American fur seals, given that the species does not interact with fisheries or salmon farms as South American sea lions do.

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Acknowledgments

The authors want to thank CONICET, ANPCyT, FAPESP, CAPES, Amneville Zoo, CNPq, UNP, GEMARS, and UNISINOS for their support for us and our students for almost 37 years of research and conservation and to our colleagues from LAMAMA and GEMARS for sharing field work and papers. We thank Doris Oliva and René Durán for sharing unpublished information on the present status of sea lion and fur seal populations. We also thank Fernando Lopes for his map and three anonymous reviewers for their help to improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratorio de Mamíferos Marinos, CESIMAR-CCT CENPAT-CONICET, Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina

    Enrique Alberto Crespo

  2. Mammal Ecology Lab, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, São Leopoldo, Brazil

    Larissa Rosa de Oliveira

Authors
  1. Enrique Alberto Crespo
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  2. Larissa Rosa de Oliveira
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Correspondence to Enrique Alberto Crespo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biología de la Conservación, Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada, Ensenada, Mexico

    Gisela Heckel

  2. Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Ensenada, Mexico

    Yolanda Schramm

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Crespo, E.A., de Oliveira, L.R. (2021). South American Fur Seal (Arctocephalus australis, Zimmerman 1783). In: Heckel, G., Schramm, Y. (eds) Ecology and Conservation of Pinnipeds in Latin America. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63177-2_2

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