Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand abstracts

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"The upland seal" of the Antipodes and Macquarie Islands: a historian's perspective

Rhys Richards*

Several zoologists have used historical material to postulate that a distinct species of seal, identified only as the "upland seal", once inhabited the Antipodes and Macquarie Islands, but is now extinct. On closer examination that conclusion seems unsustainable. However, when taken with the recent conclusions of Taylor (1992), the historical evidence may help provide an explanation of why the total seal stocks on the Antipodes, and elsewhere in the wider New Zealand region, are taking at least two centuries, or more, to recover their former numbers.

Keywords: Arctocephalus forsteri, Upland Seal, sealing history, Antipodes Islands, Macquarie Island, population recovery.

(c) Journal of The Royal Society of New Zealand,

Volume 24, Number 3, September 1994, pp 289-295

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (577K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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