Sixty years after the discovery of a colony of Juan Fernández fur seals, previously thought to be extinct, a landmark agreement extends ‘no take’ zone around the wildlife-rich archipelago
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ix decades ago, pioneering oceanographer and conservationist Sylvia Earle made a bittersweet discovery while diving off Chile’s oceanic islands with the US National Science Foundation vessel, the Anton Bruun. She found the remains of a baby fur seal, one of the world’s most isolated aquatic mammals.
Endemic to the Juan Fernández archipelago, in the Pacific Ocean, and once prized for its fur and meat, the species, Arctocephalus philippii, was believed to have been hunted to extinction in the 19th century. But, Earle said: “A baby must have a mum and dad somewhere.”
A year after her find, a small colony of 20 endemic fur seals was confirmed on Robinson Crusoe Island, one of the archipelagos’ three islands, named after Daniel Defoe’s fictionalised tale of the real-life sailor Alexander Selkirk, who was marooned there from 1704 to 1709.
