Abstract:
Leopard seals inhabit the pack-ice rim of Antarctica,
and they regularly haul out on Antarctic and Subantarctic
islands. Occasionally, vagrants are sighted
further north in South America, Australia, New
Zealand, and very rarely in southern Africa and
Oceania. Here we report on an observation made on
the 15th of July 2010 of a single 3-m-long juvenile
leopard seal at ‘Die Dam’in theWestern Cape, South
Africa (34°45.772’S, 19°42.582’E). We searched historical
records and found details of four observations
of leopard seals along the coast of South Africa
since 1946. All of these sightings were of juvenile
animals. The relative scarcity of observations is a
likely reflection of the great distance from Antarctica
and the Subantarctic to South Africa.
