Population trends of female Elephant Seals breeding on the Courbet Peninsula, ıˆles Kerguelen

• Published in: Polar Biology
• Main Authors: Authier, Matthieu, Delord, Karine, Guinet, Christophe
• Other Authors: Centre d'études biologiques de Chizé (CEBC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2011
• Subjects: archeo; envir; Indian; Kerguelen; Southern Ocean; Antarc*; Elephant Seals; Polar Biology; Southern Elephant Seals
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-010-0881-1; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00547690

International audience Southern Elephant Seals are upper marine predators of the Southern Ocean. As such, their population dynamics and fluctuations reflect environment conditions. Their worldwide populations crashed during the second half of the twentieth century for reasons not yet completely elucidated. Here, we studied the largest population of Southern Elephant Seals within the South Indian Ocean that are breeding on ıˆles Kerguelen. In a previous analysis, Guinet et al. in Antarct Sci 11:193-197, 1999) suggested that the decline on ıˆles Kerguelen might be over, as observed elsewhere. Using 10 years of additional data, we updated this analysis using state-of-the-art statistical methods to account for most uncertainties associated with count data. We showed that the population of female Southern Elephant Seals breeding on ıˆles Kerguelen has been stable over the past 20 years. Despite concomitant global changes within the Southern Ocean, we did not find any evidence of a phenological shift in peak haul-out date of breeding females between the 1970s and the 2000s.