Northern Fur Seal: Callorhinus ursinus

Abstract

The northern fur seal is the oldest living genus of the family Otariidae, with origins 2–5 million years ago. They inhabit the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea with breeding rookeries extending from Sakhalin Island in the Sea of Okhotsk east to the Kuril Islands, Commander Islands, Pribilof, and Aleutian Islands in the Bering Sea, and the Farallon and San Miguel Islands of California. Northern fur seals have been the target of intensive commercial harvest since at least the late 1700s with the primary focus on the Pribilof Islands of Alaska. The species is considered “depleted,” meaning that abundance is currently believed to be below the optimum sustainable population.