Fur Seals & Sea Lions
VulcanSpirit
Richard & Alison Brunstrom
Mon 6 May 2013 11:05
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Can you tell your fur seals apart from your
sealions? No? Then here's a handy guide. NZ has both, but actually modern
science would have them all as sealions zoologically (sealions have external
ears and can get their hind limbs under their body to run on land, whereas true
seals have no external ears and have only flippers at the rear), There are two
distinct species both of which were driven nearly to extinction by seal hunters
very soon after Cook reported their abundance at the end of the eighteenth
century.
NZ fur seals Arctocephalus forsteri are
the more common nowadays. Here are youngsters playing in the rockpools on the
east coast of South Island - photographed from a lay-by on the main
State Highway 1, the NZ trunk road.
 And here is an adult, proving that like sealions
everywhere, they know how to relax:
 The photo above actually gives you the
two points you need to tell your fur seal from your sea lion. Firstly, the
animal is basking on a rock; for some reason fur seals feel very comfortable on
a hard rock whereas sea lions like a nice soft sandy beach. And secondly, the
fur seal has a sharply pointed snout, clearly visible in the
picture.
And here are two NZ sealions Phocarctos
hookeri in their sandpit right at the south of South Island. They get
bothered by flies on these sandy beaches, so they often lie nose to tail and
flick sand over eachother with their flippers, rather like two horses in a field
flicking their tails. These are big animals - a fully grown bull can weigh over
300kg (compared to my sylph-like 95kg) and can be aggressive if provoked. This
is worth knowing, as is the unexpected fact that they can run quite a bit faster
than you can over a short distance!
 And here in the foreground is the blunt
nose:
 As you can see these magnificent animals, now fully
protected and just beginning to return to breed on the mainland again after an
absence of well over 150 years, are not looking at all provoked. I'm sure that
if they were in the UK someone would poke them with a stick, or shoot them with
an air rifle, or they'd get bitten by a dog. But here, a simple notice saying
'please do not disturb' seems to be all that's required. Bravo NZ.
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