Though leopard seals live and reproduce almost exclusively in fast ice and pack ice habitats surrounding the Antarctic Continent, they have been reported to range northward to South Georgia in the South Atlantic Ocean, South Africa, Patagonia, New Zealand and several islands in the South Atlantic, South Pacific, and southern Indian oceans. We summarize recent (2011 through 2018) sightings of leopard seals at Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Eastern Polynesia, and we discuss archeological and anthropological records (i.e., rock art, legends, archeological specimens, Rongorongo script) that arguably indicate that leopard seals have periodically appeared at the island for several centuries. We think that the most likely origin of these visits of leopard seals to Easter Island is from the Antarctic Peninsula to southwestern South America in austral winter as seasonal sea ice expands northward, or perhaps more recently from a small resident population in Tierra del Fuego, via the broad, cold Humboldt Current that flows northward along the Chilean coast from the Southern Ocean.

尽管豹海豹几乎只在南极大陆周围的快速冰和浮冰栖息地中生活和繁殖，但据报道它们在北大西洋到南乔治亚的南乔治亚，南非，巴塔哥尼亚，新西兰和南大西洋的几个岛屿，南太平洋和印度南部海洋。我们总结了最近（2011年至2018年）在波利尼西亚东部复活节岛（拉帕努伊）发现的豹海豹，并讨论了考古和人类学记录（即岩石艺术，传说，考古标本，Rongorongo文字），可以说这表明是豹海豹定期出现在岛上几个世纪。