Wakan Sansai Zue
Many bones of the Japanese sea lion have been excavated from shell middens from the Jōmon period in Japan while an 18th-century encyclopedia, "Wakan Sansai Zue", describes that the meat was not tasty and they were only used to render oil for oil lamps. Valuable oil was extracted from the skin, its internal organs were used to make expensive oriental medicine, and its whiskers and skin were used as pipe cleaners and leather goods, respectively. At the turn of the 20th century, they were captured for use in circuses.