Climate change is starving seals

The Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella) is among the most beloved sea animals, with its wet puppy dog eyes, big white whiskers, rolly poly gray body and slippery flippers. Unsurprisingly, the fur seal is almost universally regarded as adorable. The act of clubbing one for its fur is a horrific practice that has thankfully been banned — but in a way, humans are still clubbing these animals over the head with drastic changes to the global climate.

As explained by the authors of a recent study in the journal Global Change Biology, Antarctic fur seals are a "key indicator species" that helps scientists learn more about the overall health of the ecosystem in the subantarctic islands of South Georgia, where nearly all fur seals live. Perhaps this is why it is so troubling that, according to those same researchers, South Georgia fur seal populations are on the decline — and that one major culprit is climate change.

“We found both good and bad news about the fur seals," Jaume Forcada, a British Antarctic Survey (BAS) scientist who led the new study, said in a statement. "The population has recovered very impressively throughout the twentieth century when seal hunting was banned. But twenty-first century changes to the abundance of krill in the Southern Ocean are now threatening these iconic animals all over again.”