I am preparing a short note on the above issue describing pavlovian conditioned behaviour in residente Arctocephalus australis and Otaria flavescens from Uruguay. Comments and literature suggestions will be very much appreciated.
Hi Joao, what kind of information are you looking for? I do not have any behavioural data as such but there are seals in Walvis Bay, Namibia, which are conditioned to seek food from marine wildlife-watching boats. In fact there are many seals which also follow the fishing boats in this area to wait for discards and possibly to steal fish off hooks. There is a reference to this in a paper I which is in press, so I could pass that on if that would be of assistance?
Dear Ruth. That would be very helpful. I am collecting data on these conditioned behaviours. I did colect some in S Africa a couple of years ago but not in Namíbia. Mostly from S America and USA/Canada Pacific.
What you refer should be very much interesting.
Many thanks and best regards,
JP
Interesting question and a reply from Greece: During the last decade we have repeated frequent visitation of Monachus monachus in small ports in various islands in the Aegean. I have information for three such occurances. This month a young one was in the Harbour o of Karystos Evia Island (c. 70 km. due East of Athens) and repeatedly visited the inner harbour praying on Octopi (Octapus vulgaris). The attitide of the fishers towards seals has definately changed due to three decade plus conservation and awareness campaigns; these endangered seals are finally more "visible" in Greece. No published literature yet on this, as far as I know.
Dear Stamatis. Thanks for your reply. We are passing for a similar process in Madeira with the - fortunately - increasing population of M. monachus still there. Would you be interested to develop this idea for a future paper regarding the whole question on a global perspective? I have some interesting yet unpublished data from many places in the world mainly with Otariidae.
My e-mail is [email protected]
Best regards and many thanks for your kind attention,
JP
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