Galapagos fur seals head for warm Peru waters

A colony of fur seals has moved 1,500km away from the Galapagos Islands, a Peru-based organisation which monitors the aquatic mammals has said.

The Organisation for Research and Conservation of Aquatic Animals says the fur seals have swum to northern Peru because of rising temperatures.

It is the first time fur seals have set up a colony away from the islands, Orca says.

Average sea temperatures off northern Peru have risen, monitors say.

Measurements from the Peruvian Geophysics Institute indicate the sea surface temperature in the northern Peruvian provinces of Piura and Tumbes have consistently risen from an average of 17C to 23C over the last 10 years.

The temperature is much closer to the sea temperature around the Galapagos Islands, which averages about 25C.

Now that the conditions of the sea around northern Peru are so similar to the Galapagos, they say, even more fur seals and other new marine species could start arriving.

The Galapagos Islands are located more than 900km west off continental Ecuador.

Ever since the English naturalist, Charles Darwin, first visited the islands more than 150 years ago, they have become known as a living museum of evolution.