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| Subspecies: | Unknown |
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| Est. World Population: | 200000 |
| CITES Status: | NOT LISTED |
| IUCN Status: | Least Concern |
| U.S. ESA Status: | NOT LISTED |
| Body Length: | |
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| Jumping Ability: | (Horizontal) |
| Life Span: | in the Wild |
| Life Span: | in Captivity |
| Sexual Maturity: | (Females) |
| Sexual Maturity: | (Males) |
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Subantarctic Fur Seals are polygynous, males defend territories with vocal and postural displays and fighting (Bester 1981, Kerley 1983). They prefer rough rocky or boulder beaches with sources of shade or exposure to prevailing winds (Bester 1982). Pups are born from late October to early January, with a peak in mid-December. Females give birth within six days of arriving at the colony with oestrous and mating occurs eight to 12 days later. Females spend the time between the births of their pups and oestrous with their newborn before mating and departing for the first of a series of foraging trips they will make before weaning their pup at approximately 11 months of age (Bester 1981, Kerley 1983, Goldsworthy 1999). Trip durations of mothers increase over the course of lactation from six to 10 days to 23-28 days (Goldsworthy 1999, Georges and Guinet 2000, Kirkman et al. 2002). Dives become deeper and slightly longer over the summer. Dives are seldom deeper than 100 m (but up to 208 m) or longer than four minutes (Georges et al. 2000). Foraging behaviour varies between subpopulations (Robinson et al. 2002, Beauplet et al. 2004, Bailleul et al. 2005, de Bruyn et al. 2009).
Subantarctic Fur Seals are opportunistic and pelagic foragers. They feed on myctophid and notothenid fish, cephalopods, and small numbers of crustaceans at Gough Island (Bester and Laycock 1985), the Prince Edward Islands (Klages and Bester 1998, Makhado et al. 2013), Macquarie Island (Goldsworthy et al. 1997, Robinson et al. 2002) and the Isles Crozet (Cherel et al. 2007, Kernaléguen et al. 2012). At Amsterdam Island they have been recorded to take Rockhopper Penguins (Paulian 1964).
Subantarctic Fur Seals are sympatric with other species of Fur Seals at three sites. Low levels of hybridization with Antarctic Fur Seals occurs at the Prince Edward Islands (Hofmeyr et al. 2006a) and the Îles Crozet (Kingston and Gwilliam 2007). Hybridization occurs with both Antarctic Fur Seals and New Zealand Fur Seals at Macquarie Island (Lancaster et al. 2006, Goldsworthy et al. 2009, Lancaster et al. 2010).
Subantarctic Fur Seals are widely-distributed in the southern hemisphere. They breed on Subantarctic islands north of the Antarctic Polar Front, including Amsterdam and Saint Paul Islands (Guinet et al. 1994), the Îsles Crozet (Kingston and Gwilliam 2007), Gough (Bester et al. 2006), Macquarie (Goldsworthy et al. 2009, Lancaster et al. 2006), the Prince Edward Islands (Bester et al. 2003, Hofmeyr et al. 2006a) and Tristan da Cunha (C. Glass pers. comm. in SCAR EGS 2008). Pupping has also been recorded on Heard Island (a single individual in multiple years; Goldsworthy and Shaughnessy 1989, Page et al. 2003). Vagrants have been recorded widely. They have been encountered on the coasts of a number of continents: Antarctica (Shaughnessy and Burton 1986), southern South America (Bastida et al. 199, 9Aguiar-dos Santos and Haimovici 2001), Africa (Shaughnessy and Ross 1980, Bester 1989), as far north as Tanzania (Hofmeyr and Amir 2010), Gabon (Zanre and Bester 2011) and Australia (Gales et al. 1992, Shaughnessy et al. 2014). They have also been recorded on numerous islands including Madagascar (Garrigue and Ross 1996), New Zealand (Taylor 1990), the Comores (David et al. 1993), the Juan Fernandez Islands (Torres and Aguayo 1984), Îles Kerguelen (Wynen et al. 2000), Mauritius (David and Salmon 2003), Bouvetøya (Hofmeyr et al. 2006b) and South Georgia (Payne 1979).
Subantarctic Fur Seals live in some of the most remote oceanic areas and breed on many of the most isolated islands on Earth. All of the breeding islands are managed as protected areas or parks by the governments that claim these territories. Seals on the Prince Edward Islands are protected by the South African Sea Bird and Seal Protection Act of 1973 and also inhabit a special nature reserve and a marine protected area (PEIMP 2010). Seals on Gough and Tristan Islands are protected by the Tristan da Cunha Conservation Ordinance of 1976. Amsterdam and Saint Paul Islands are regulated by the French Chamber of Deputies, while at Macquarie Island, the Fur Seals are protected by the Tasmanian Department of Parks, Wildlife, and Heritage (Reijnders et al. 1993) and by the Australian Government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (1999), under which they are listed as a Threatened Species (Vulnerable category) based on the low number of individuals breeding in the Australian region.