The current status of and future trends for the Cape fur seal Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus population are assessed using information from aerial counts of pup abundance. The model used in the analyses is age- and sex-structured, and assumes density-dependence in the survival rate of pups. Uncertainty is assessed by conducting sensitivity tests and estimating 90% confidence intervals by the percentile method. The results confirm the increase of the seal population since the introduction of legal controls at the end of the 19th century, and the estimate of 1,7 million animals of Age 1 and older at the start of 1993 is relatively robust to model assumptions and values for biological parameters. The food consumption by the seal population is estimated to have almost doubled between 1973 and 1993, and to be roughly 2 million tons annually at present. Future trajectories of seal numbers and annual consumption of food cannot be determined with great precision and are sensitive to the values assumed for the po...