2006-2007 Alaska Fur Seal Investigations

July 01, 2007

The northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus) population in the Pribilof Islands Archipelago (on St. Paul and St. George Islands, Figs. 1-3) constitutes roughly half of the world population. Other breeding colonies are located on the Kuril and Commander Islands in Russia, Bogoslof Island (Fig. 4) in the southeastern Bering Sea, and on San Miguel Island (Fig. 5) off California. The rookeries at San Miguel and Bogoslof Islands probably originated in the late 1950s (DeLong 1982) and 1980 (R.R. Ream, NMML-AFSC, pers. comm.), respectively.