Range and Population Status
Although Weddell seals, crabeater seals and leopard seals are ubiquitous in Antarctic waters, the Ross seal is an uncommon and relatively unknown animal, considered to be the least common pack ice seal. It almost never leaves the Antarctic Ocean, with the very rare exception of stray animals found around sub-Antarctic islands, and uniquely, off the south coast of Australia. Nonetheless, its distribution is circumpolar, with individuals found in low densities - usually singly - in very thick pack ice in all regions of the continent.
The total Ross seal population is estimated at around 130,000 individuals, but there is great uncertainty in this estimate (reported 95% confidence intervals range from 20,000 to 227,000). Thus, very little is known about trends in the population.
Interactions with humans have been limited. They have been collected historically by Antarctic expeditions and for scientific collections. Their range does not generally overlap with commercial fishing.
Read more about this topic: Ross Seal
Famous quotes containing the words range, population and/or status:
“Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“The population of the world is a conditional population; these are not the best, but the best that could live in the existing state of soils, gases, animals, and morals: the best that could yet live; there shall be a better, please God.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What is clear is that Christianity directed increased attention to childhood. For the first time in history it seemed important to decide what the moral status of children was. In the midst of this sometimes excessive concern, a new sympathy for children was promoted. Sometimes this meant criticizing adults. . . . So far as parents were put on the defensive in this way, the beginning of the Christian era marks a revolution in the child’s status.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)