Despite the wholesale slaughter of southern elephant seals for the commercial extraction of blubber-oil during the mid and late 1800’s, their populations have persisted at almost all historical breeding locations There are presently an estimated 749,000 southern elephant seals in the Southern Ocean, about 2% (14,500) of which live permanently in the Antarctic Treaty Area south of 60º South Although these southernmost permanent breeding populations are relatively small, a large (yet to be determined) proportion...