[1] Although the Australian and New Zealand populations show some genetic differences, their morphologies are very similar, and thus they remain classed as a single species.

[1] Like other otariids, they have external ears and hind flippers that rotate forward, which visibly distinguish them from true seals.

Small populations are forming in Bass Strait and coastal waters of Victoria and New South Wales as far as the mid-north coast.

Due to the differences in diving pattern between males and females, there is very little inter-sexual competition for food sources.

Based on scat samples, it has been found that the pups start by eating cephalopods and eventually making their way to fish, but this may just be a result of prey availability during different times of the year.

When beginning labour, which can last as much as five hours, they lie down and toss their head in the air, straining forward on their fore flippers, lifting their hind quarters, or moving laterally, before slowly lowering their head down, a process they repeat until they finally give birth.

Immediately after birth the mother begins frequently sniffing the newborn pup to better identify when she has to find it after a trip out to sea.

The biggest natural cause of death for pups is starvation, followed by suffocation in the amnion, stillbirth, trampling, drowning, and predation.

[16] Individuals located near their southern range limit have been known to eat penguins as part of their diet.

[16] Stomach contents have been analysed and shown to include Australian anchovy, barracouta, Paralichthyes flounders, broadgilled hagfish, pouched lamprey, red cod, school shark, and many other species.

[16] There are different factors that affect their diet, such as season, sex, breeding, surrounding colony, oceanography, and climatic patterns.

[17] Known predators are killer whales, sharks, male New Zealand sea lions, and possibly leopard seals.

Today, commercial fisheries are one of the main causes of death in New Zealand fur seals, usually by entanglement and drowning.

[1] Monitoring of these pinnipeds in the Kaikōura region found that entanglements with green trawl nets and plastic strapping tape were the most common.

[19] A little less than half of the individuals were successfully released with good chances of survival even after significant entanglement wounds.

[19] It has been estimated by the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society that over 10,000 seals could have drowned in nets between 1989 and 1998.

How often these shootings occur is unknown, but pressure groups have stated that the conflict between the seals and commercial fisheries is expected to increase.

[20] On 21 August 2014, two decomposing animals were found beheaded near Louth Bay in South Australia.

As of July 2015[update], the killing of long-nosed fur seals remains an illegal act.

Human activity near seal rookeries has been correlated with distress and panic, resulting in indirect deaths of pups.