The Brown Fur Seal

In Narooma they had seals by edge of they water that we were very interested in. I decided that I would get to know them a bit better because everyone was curious. This was as much as I could get from the internet but if you know anything else or have any questions let me know. It was very interesting to see one up close because I never had before. I dropped my phone filming them, (luckily it landed between some rocks where I could get it back), but it was worth it! Enough talk, here is what you need to know about them:

General Information:

The Australian fur seal is also known as the Brown fur seal, Arctocephalus pusillus, Cape fur seal and South African fur seal. Its Conservation status is: Least Concern (Meaning that its population is increasing and is in no danger of extinction). Their lifespan is an average of 21 years and have a litter of one pup usually born November-December.

Habitat and Threats:

The brown fur seal feeds out on the open sea, returning to the land to rest and breed preferring islands and rocky sites. Brown fur seals are also commonly found in the bass strait which is the sea in between Tasmania and Victoria. (When we cross this ferry I will keep an eye out!) This species of seal have observed that fishermen catch fishes that they eat so they occasionally attempt to steal the fish from the fisher men and risk getting caught in the net then drowning. Seals are also at risk from pollution and plastic bottles in the sea. There have also been reports of fishermen illegally shooting seals to cut the competition for fish stocks. (Not in Australia).

Appearance and Individuality: (Sorry for table formatting. Wrote on word then copy and pasted)

Key	Weight	Colour
Male Adult	180-290kg	Dark grey to brown with short dark mane and a light belly
Female Adult	36-110kg	Light brown to grey with light throat but darker back and belly
Newborn	10-25kg	Lightish brown

The brown fur seal is different to other species of seal because it is one of the ‘eared’ seal family and lives on our shores in large colonies. Sea loins and fur seals are similar in the way that they have ears. Both sea loins and fur seals ‘walk’ with their flippers rotated to the front. Another similarity between the two is that when swimming and diving they use their fore flippers to propel them selves and their hind flippers to steer.

This was about all I could find online but if there is something else that you know about them let me know because I would love to hear it! Hope you enjoyed it and it wasn’t too boring!