What sea lion species endemic to Japan went extinct in the 1970s due to hunting?

The Japanese sea lion was the sea lion species endemic to Japan that went extinct in the 1970s after intense commercial hunting.

Zalophus japonicus lived around the Japanese Archipelago, the Korean Peninsula, the Sea of Japan, and parts of the Sea of Okhotsk. It bred on sandy beaches and rocky coastal sites, especially around the Liancourt Rocks. For many years, scientists treated it as a subspecies of the California sea lion; it was recognized as a separate species in 2003.

Commercial hunters sought the animals for oil, leather, whiskers, internal organs, and other products. Japanese trawlers reportedly harvested as many as 16,500 sea lions. Annual catches fell from roughly 3,200 at the beginning of the twentieth century to only a few dozen by the 1930s.

Commercial harvesting ended in the 1940s, when the species was already nearly gone. The last confirmed record was a juvenile captured near Rebun Island in 1974. A few later reports were unconfirmed, so the species is generally considered extinct in the 1970s.