{"id":40692,"date":"2022-11-30T00:01:33","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T08:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/?post_type=custom_news&p=40692"},"modified":"2022-11-28T12:02:04","modified_gmt":"2022-11-28T20:02:04","slug":"what-to-do-when-the-recovery-of-one-species-puts-another-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"custom_news","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/news\/what-to-do-when-the-recovery-of-one-species-puts-another-at-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Do When the Recovery of One Species Puts Another at Risk?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Antarctic, the fur seal population is booming. Having rebounded from near eradication by hunters in the early 20th century, Antarctic fur seals are making their way to new frontiers. Their recovery has been so successful that the animals are pushing beyond their known historical range, causing \u201cunexpected terrestrial conservation challenges\u201d for Antarctica\u2019s fragile vegetation, warns a recent study<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Starting around 2010, fur seals have been expanding from their hub centered on South Georgia island down the Antarctic Peninsula, reaching the southern side of Marguerite Bay. \u201cThat\u2019s way farther south than we would have seen them before,\u201d says Peter Convey, an ecologist with the British Antarctic Survey and lead author of the new study. This expansion is led mostly by juveniles and non-breeding males. When they haul out on land, these fur seals trample the fragile coastal vegetation that thrives on Antarctica\u2019s limited ice-free terrain.<\/p>\n

Convey points to the damage fur seals have caused on Signy Island, one of the South Orkney Islands, where the landscape, including the fragile mosses and lichens that grow there, has been heavily impacted by seals. In 1977, says Convey, there were around 1,600 seals on Signy Island<\/a>. By the mid-1990s, there were more than 20,000. As well as trampling vegetation, seals defecating and urinating near the island\u2019s freshwater lakes have contributed to their eutrophication.<\/p>\n

Convey and his colleagues are raising the issue to stimulate discussion. He\u2019s concerned that the current plans that oversee Antarctica\u2019s protection\u2014managed by the multi-state Antarctic Treaty\u2014only account for human impacts on the continent. But for him, the scale of the seal\u2019s impact far outweighs that of humans. Convey says the situation gets at a fundamental question: is it the Antarctic Treaty\u2019s job to provide physical protection for the continent\u2019s inhabitants from each other? \u201cThere\u2019s no easy answer,\u201d Convey says. But he believes it is a debate that has to be had.<\/p>\n

Brian Silliman, a marine biologist at Duke University in North Carolina who wasn\u2019t involved in the research, suggests the seals\u2019 expansion may be a case of recolonization into their full historical range. It\u2019s common when looking at rebounding species<\/a> to think they are \u201cdoing things that we thought they\u2019re not supposed to do,\u201d Silliman says. Studying populations at their nadir after decades of overhunting or loss can give a false impression of their previous range and behavior, he adds.<\/p>\n

It is unclear what Antarctic fur seal population levels were, or where exactly they were distributed, prior to historical overhunting. Convey, however, underlines that there is no evidence that seals have ever galumphed their way across these particular coastlines\u2014even prior to their exploitation.<\/p>\n

Convey is careful to stress that culling the seals isn\u2019t and shouldn\u2019t be on the table. Yet the question of how to respond to the ballooning fur seal population is a management headache requiring difficult decisions. At its core, the situation asks whether Antarctica\u2019s terrestrial ecosystems should be prioritized over its expanding fur seals.<\/p>\n

Claire Christian, executive director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, an NGO devoted to protecting Antarctica and its surrounding waters, says the Antarctic Treaty System has tough choices to make based on rather limited information. Potentially identifying hotspots of vegetation that should be protected from errant fur seals may be one approach. Convey agrees this is a potential solution. Yet taking steps to safeguard this terrain\u2014such as by installing fences\u2014would be yet another human intervention with possibly unforeseen consequences. Fences have been deployed in some locations, with mixed success.<\/p>\n

Another approach, Christian suggests, is to figure out what is needed to make this new normal thrive \u201cinstead of trying to make it into what we want to see,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Ally Kristan, a marine biologist who studied rebounding populations<\/a> on South Georgia Island while at Louisiana State University and was not involved in the research, is \u201cvery wary of implementing control methods on a population that has already been so vastly and disastrously affected by human impact.\u201d Regardless of where they used to live, Kristan says, fur seals are now in an altered ecosystem due to past and current impacts. There is no way to return things to \u201cnormal,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

This lack of simple answers unites those concerned with protecting Antarctica with those working to manage changing environments elsewhere, such as in the Indian Ocean where dwindling shark populations have allowed green sea turtles to rebound swiftly\u2014and to go on to overgraze seagrass<\/a> meadows. Along the west coast of North America, recovering populations of sea otters have come into conflict<\/a> with local people<\/a>. As other marine predators<\/a> recover, they may do similarly.<\/p>\n

Inadvertently or not, humans have been picking ecosystems\u2019 winners and losers for millennia. As populations recover from historical exploitation and struggle to adapt to already altered environments that are further changing because of anthropogenic warming, taking a hands-off approach is seeming less and less viable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Antarctic, the fur seal population is booming. Having rebounded from near eradication by hunters in the early 20th century, Antarctic fur seals are making their way to new frontiers. Their recovery has been so successful that the animals <\/p>\n

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