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Cape Fur Seal and Bull Kelp, South Africa, 2002

The sun silhouettes the sinuous form of a Cape fur seal plunging through a forest of bull kelp fronds off the coast of Gansbaai, South Africa. Though clumsy on land, Arctocephalus pusillus, or Cape fur seals, epitomize grace underwater. They patrol the coastal waters of South Africa and southeast Australia, feeding on fish, squid, cuttlefish, and octopus.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Oceans of Plenty: South Africa's Teeming Seas," August 2002, National Geographic magazine)

Photograph by David Doubilet