New Zealand fur seals at the Antipodes Islands

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Abstract
The Antipodes Islands (49° 41′ S, 178° 47′ E) were discovered in 1800, and their once-abundant fur seals exterminated within 20 years. It was over 150 years before these animals were once more regularly found at the islands. Since the 1950s, New Zealand fur seals, Arctocephalus forsteri, have slowly increased in numbers, and now about 2000 (mostly yearlings and older juveniles) visit the islands each year in late-summer, although there are far fewer in winter. Very few breed at the Antipodes; seven pups found in 1985 were the first recorded there this century. The history of fur seals at Macquarie Island is very similar to that at Antipodes, but both contrast with the far more rapid recovery in numbers of fur seals elsewhere in the New Zealand region. It has been argued that the original fur seals of these two island groups may not have been A. forsteri, but a species more vulnerable to sealing, and this suggestion is re-examined and discussed. An alternative hypothesis is presented: that the two islands may never have supported large breeding populations of fur seals, of any species, but rather were traditional hauling grounds for many thousands of juvenile New Zealand fur seals.

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