Threats to the conservation of the southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) in the southern Atlantic due to commercial fishing.

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Main researcher: Filippo Galimberti

Institution: Elephant Seal Research Group

Description:
Fishing is one of the main threats to the conservation of pinnipeds, particularly in oceans where the impact of fishing is high and the fish and cephalopod populations that form part of its diet have been reduced dramatically. In the waters of the Southern Atlantic, where a large part of the frozen hake and calamari consumed in Spain come from, there is a heavy fishing impact that could be reducing the load capacity of the ecosystem for the population of southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) of the Falkland Islands (Malvinas).

The Falkland Island southern elephant seal population is currently in decline and although this population is quite small, its extinction would not only have an impact on local biodiversity, but also on a world scale, since it plays a key role in the conservation of the species as it favours the genetic flow between different populations.

The aim of the project is to determine the use of the southern elephant seal's habitat within the Falkland Islands in order to assess its interaction with commercial fishing and collect information for the effective management of its conservation.

To achieve this objective, a multiple and mutually complementary approach will be used which combines analysis of stable isotopes and satellite transmitters. On the one hand, the isotopic signal from different sea elephant colonies, compared with the geographic variability of the isotopic signal of the region, will be taken as an intrinsic marker to estimate, with a high number of examples, the feeding grounds and decipher the seals' migratory movements.

On the other, the satellite transmitters will provide more accurate information, but about few examples, as to how sea elephants use their habitat and how often they find themselves in areas associated with fishing.  

Consequently, the relationship between the feeding area and the isotopic signal of the seals fitted with satellite transmitters will help validate and interpret more reliably data from the isotopic signal from all animals without transmitters.

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