Fur seal skull from sealers' quarters at Sandy Bay, Macquarie Island, Southern Ocean

• Published in: Polar Record
• Main Authors: Townrow, K., Shaughnessy, P. D.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1991
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology; Geography, Planning and Development; Antarctic; Southern Ocean; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctic Fur Seal; Arctocephalus gazella; Macquarie Island; Polar Record; South Atlantic Ocean
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400012651; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247400012651

Abstract Fur seals were exterminated from Macquarie Island about 20 years after discovery of the island in 1810. Their specific identity is unknown. Few fur seals were reported at the island until it was occupied by the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions in 1948. Fur seal numbers are now increasing. An archaeological excavation at a sealers' quarters at Sandy Bay in 1988 revealed the fragmented skull of a young Antarctic fur seal Arctocephalus gazella 1.1 m below the surface in a layer dated in the 1870s and 1880s. This period coincides with the recovery of fur seal populations in the South Atlantic Ocean following earlier harvesting. Elsewhere it has been argued that the Antarctic fur seal is unlikely to have been the original fur seal at Macquarie Island because few individuals of that species are ashore in winter, which is the season when the island was discovered and fur-seal harvesting began. It is concluded that the Sandy Bay skull is from a vagrant animal.