Editors: Roger Kirkwood and Simon Goldsworthy

CSIRO Publishing

ISBN: 9780643096929

AUD$39.95

Fur seals and sea lions are the classic charismatic megafauna, capturing the imagination of small children and adults alike with their playful antics and beguiling eyes. Regardless, past history has seen them nearly hunted to extinction. Before sheep, Australia “lived off the seals back” with a thriving industry providing skins and oil to China and the European aristocracy. The seal skin industry, over a 20 year period, hunted hundreds of thousands of these animals and by 1825, for species such as the Australian fur seal, the population was reduced to a staggering 5% of original estimates. Most seal stocks are still to recover former ranges and abundances, and it is suspected that southern marine ecosystems are still rebounding from the large scale removal of these high trophic order predators. 

Fur seal and sea lions provides a comprehensive comparative account of three Australian marine mammal icons; Australian fur seal, New Zealand fur seal and Australian sea lion. The book unfolds with a historical perspective of man’s interaction with seals in the early years of Australia’s colonisation, with the rise of sealing in southern Australia having a catastrophic impact on seal populations. From here the book develops into a discussion on evolution, morphological and physiological adaptations, distribution, reproductive biology, foraging ecology and population biology. The final chapter sets the scene on conservation and management, providing an enlightening discussion on some of the issues facing seal populations today. The eight chapters summarise an enormous amount of information building on the 25 years of research and knowledge of the authors, as well as a substantial number of studies conducted over the past ten years.

Natural history books have a tendency to be somewhat dry, filled with facts and figures that, at times, quickly overwhelm the reader. This book breaks that mould as it is well written, providing enough detail to satiate the thirst for knowledge of the most ardent marine mammologist, but presented in a style that is easy to read and follow. The supporting tables and plates are well laid out and provide an excellent summary of information, clearly re-enforcing the pertinent facts presented in the text.

The book is bursting with little gems of information that are perfect for slipping quietly into after dinner conversation or stimulating the thought process of a young child. The difficulties of tracking foraging fur seals and sea lions and determining the main components of their diet, is a perfect example. Changes in technology have evolved from trying to track animals using VHF transmitters, receiving stations and triangulation to devices that can now measure speed, depth, stomach temperature, heart rate and even video what was for lunch via the aptly named “Crittercam”.

The chapter on conservation and management personally stimulated a lot thought on the future of the three species along Australia’s southern shores. “Could seal predation seriously compromise the economic viability of a commercial fishery and could reductions in seal populations improve fishery viability?” is a perfect example of some the thought provoking statements put forward in the text. There appears to be a number of pressure points influencing the population dynamics of the three species and as numbers slowly increase, it will be interesting to see what the main drivers are in limiting the overall population size. Trophic interactions between seals and fisheries, entanglements from marine debris, direct fisheries interactions, tourism, bioaccumulation of toxins and even disease and parasites all play a part in controlling the number of seals living along the coast. The population of New Zealand fur seals, in South Australia, has increased over recent years. With this increase in seal numbers there has been a reciprocal decrease in local little penguin populations. The demise of the penguins has led to an intriguing debate in main stream media about what should be done to solve this dilemma. Culling has been mentioned but when you consider all the pressure points controlling fur seal population size, you begin to question the folly of this move.

Overall the book is well worth purchasing if you have even the slightest interest in these charismatic megafauna. Regardless of whether you are a marine scientist or not, Fur Seals and Sea Lions is well worth a read. 

Dr Tim Kildea, South Australian Water Corporation