Howdy folks! It’s certainly been a while, so forgive me if this has been extensively discussed elsewhere. I just wanted to know your thoughts on the possibility of Antarctic seal species being kept in captivity (zoos and/or aquaria) in the future. Though I do know there was at some point a rescued Leopard Seal in captivity, I was also wondering thoughts on Crabeater, Weddell, and especially Ross seals in captivity. I am especially curious as to thoughts on plausibility (diet, transportation, captive environment, etc), and ethicality as they would have to be wild caught originally. Would the pros of these underrepresented species being in captivity outweighs the cons? I’m curious to hear your thoughts!
There have been a fair few Leopard Seals kept, and probably will be again should an individual reach Australia or New Zealand in need of rehab. They seem to do well enough, although I don't think they will ever become a regularly seen zoo animal. A few Weddell seals have been kept in the past, I know nothing of how they fared. I'm not aware that either Crabeater or Ross has been kept before, maybe the odd rehab down under? Personally I don't see the point of attempting to start a population of any of them. We already have plenty of rescues native to our shores, why spend the money to go to the Antarctic and risk losses? Also all the true Antarctic seals are protected by the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals, and any attempt to capture and ship out any would have to be approved. There's so many hurdles to getting Antarctic seals to North America or Europe it's really not worth the effort, potential losses, and expense.
Few individual Antractic seals imported to Europe in 20. century had an impression that they are very sensitive to airborne gems, which don't exist in the clean Antarctic air. I am not sure this would still be true today. In any case, zoos in Europe are overfilled with local seals and sealions, also rescues.
ZTL lists leopard seals at Hamburg (1937-9) and Moscow (1951-2) and Weddell seals at Antwerp (1966), Edinburgh (1914) and Hamburg (1930) I saw a leopard seal at Taronga in 1991.
Honestly, if you are really looking at setting up new seal species I would focus on Antarctic and Alaskan species. For Europe and America, it's a much shorter trip with similar weather and we have proven that caring for certain Antarctic species isn't impossible. We also already have a few species in North America like Stellers Sea Lion and Northern Elephant Seals. One major problem is that, like Europe, we have a lot of California Sea Lions and Harbor seals which have proved already popular with zoo visitors. They are also very easy to keep whereas Antarctic species, in general, are difficult to keep. Son unless there was a large well-acclimated group of leopard seals or crabeaters in Australia or New Zealand, I don't think Antarctic Seals would fair well in American and European zoos.
There's a paper about a captive crabeater, but I'm not sure what sort of captivity it was - Feeding behaviour of a captive crabeater seal There's a few other mentions here and there, but all are behind big paywalls or are in expensive books.
Antarctic seals which turn up on the South African coasts go to one of the big oceanariums for recovery (either permanent or temporary, depending on the circumstances). The Port Elizabeth Oceanarium (aka Bayworld PE) has had several seals. For example, there is an article in the IZY 16 (1) [December 2007] about two Crabeaters being kept there at the same time. This link (from January this year) is about one at the uShaka Sea World, which was then transferred to Bayworld PE for release, and if you scroll down further there is more about another Crabeater already being kept at Bayworld PE (both animals were released together): Ragnar's Journey | SAAMBR
In France there are mainly native seals, that are more representative of our protected fauna ; additionnally rescuing seals is a concern in North Western regions (Hauts-de-France, Bretagne, Normandie...). And there are a lot of sea lions, easy to keep and breed even if they aren't threatened in their habitat. Zoos and aquaria aren't interested about Antarctic seals, that are more difficult to keep and not threatened. But I would add that before the 1980's the Marineland (marine zoo) of Antibes acquired subantarctic fur seals and southern elephant seals, some of them survived until the 2000's. The zoos of Paris (Zoo de Vincennes and Jardin des Plantes) had also elephant seals in the mid-20th century.
I went to Taronga about that time and definately saw two individuals. Also saw one at Napier Marineland in NZ around the same time. This is a spectacular species that I never ever expected to see, and in fact saw them twice!
