DOI: 10.15468/kngcq4
title: South Shetland Antarctic fur seal pup census

description: The South Shetland Antarctic fur seal pup census dataset is part of long-term monitoring efforts in the South Shetland Islands archipelago (SSI), based at Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island. These efforts, which include conducting annual synoptic census counts of South Shetland Antarctic fur seals (SSAFS) throughout the region, have been primarily carried out by the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) United States Antarctic Marine Living Resources Program (U.S. AMLR). These census data will continue to be collected by the U.S. AMLR program, and updated yearly.Recent studies have demonstrated Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella) are composed of at least four distinct subpopulations (Bonin et al. 2013, Paijmans et al. 2020), including one breeding throughout the SSI. These SSAFS are the highest latitude population of otariids in the world. As such, this subpopulation faces a unique array of environmental and ecological challenges, harbors a disproportionately large reservoir of genetic diversity for the species, and has experienced catastrophic population decline between 2008 and 2023 (Krause et al. 2023 and references therein). Therefore, ensuring access to accurate and updated population data for SSAFS is particularly important for managers and decision makers. Due to regular absences by foraging females throughout the breeding season, and the irregular haul out patterns of males and subadults, the most informative measure of fur seal population size is to annually count pups (Payne, 1979; Bengtson et al., 1990). This dataset consists of all known total synoptic Antarctic fur seal pup counts (i.e., live and dead pups) from the SSI during the austral summers since 1959. Counts from the subset breeding colonies at Cape Shirreff (CS, reported with standard deviation (±SD) where available) and the San Telmo Islets (STI) are also included. Data were collected by the U.S. AMLR Program, unless otherwise indicated.Most of these annual census counts were conducted during the optimal biological window (late December and early January) when the vast majority of pups are born, but have not yet been subject to substantial mortality (Krause et al. 2022). The authors are confident that all counts included in this dataset are comparable and representative of South Shetland Antarctic fur seal population trends. However, census dates, or at least best estimates of the census date, are included for all records for any parties wishing to apply correction factors.The data are published as a standardized Darwin Core Archive, which contains count data for SSAFS pups from the specified locations during the specified seasons. This dataset is published under the license CC0. Please follow the guidelines from the SCAR Data Policy (SCAR, 2023) when using the data. If you have any questions regarding this dataset, please contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or via data-biodiversity-aq@naturalsciences.be. Issues with the dataset can be reported at https://github.com/us-amlr/ssafs-pup-census.This dataset is maintained by the U.S. Antarctic Marine Living Resources Program, funded by NOAA.