A common local waterfowl is the crested duck, which is seldom hunted because of its strong fishy flavor. Although whales and porpoises are relatively plentiful, seeing them is mostly a matter of luck. Sea lions and fur seals, however, abound and are easy to see. The local sea lion is more than twice the size of the California one we associate with Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco or with zoo exhibits. Sea lions generally haul out on sandy beaches and for millennia were a major food source for local Indians.
Fur seals are smaller than southern sea lions and frequent rocky coasts.
Both sea lions and fur seals have circumpolar distributions in the Southern Hemisphere and when whaling declined due to overharvesting in the 19th century, sealers harvested untold millions for oil and fur. Both sea lions and fur seals have recovered from this slaughter, although not to their former numbers because, like their relatives in the Northern Hemisphere, they possibly face increased competition for food from commercial fisheries. One reason why marine bird and mammal life is so varied and abundant in the temperate Southern Hemisphere is that this part of the globe is mostly ocean and thus teems with fish, so many in fact that in every port we visited, large trawlers and refrigerator ships were common. With the demise of the North Atlantic fish industry, fishing nations have moved their fleets south. At Puerto Madryn in Argentina the shore is littered with abandoned fishing boats whose owners can no longer compete with large offshore trawlers that remain at sea for weeks at a time.