This species was thought to be the most numerically abundant species of fur seal, perhaps numbering over 3 million in the early 1600s before exploitation, and was soon after thought to be extinct. The species was ‘rediscovered’ in the mid-1900s and is now rapidly recovering.The link leads through to this paper (pdf).
Goldsworthy, S.D., Francis, J. Boness, D. and Fleischer, R. (2000) Variation in the mitochondrial control region in the Juan Fernandez fur seal (Arctocephalus philippii). Journal of Heredity. 91:371-377
