How did early sealing affect southern fur seal populations?

Commercial fur sealing in the subantarctic region, which began in the second half of the 18th century, had a devastating impact on southern fur seal populations. Driven by the desire to supply lucrative markets in Europe and China, the industry harvested millions of skins, particularly from the Falkland Islands during the mid-1780s.1

This intense and unregulated exploitation caused the herds to disappear almost entirely within a century, pushing several species—such as the New Zealand fur seal, the Galapagos fur seal, and the Juan Fernandez fur seal—nearly to the point of extinction. These early sealing activities were so destructive that they are widely recognized as having led to the near-total collapse of southern fur seal populations. It is a fundamental ethical principle that the natural world must be treated with stewardship rather than exploited to the brink of destruction for short-term commercial gain.123