Harbour seals respond differently to pulses of out-migrating coho and Chinook salmon smolts 

Biologging data from foraging harbour seals shows less impact on outmigrating salmon than expected. A few seals in the study population targetted juvenile coho, and exerted less pressure on chinook—appearing instead to target larger fish preying on juvenile chinook

Predation by harbour seals is believed to significantly impact juvenile coho and Chinook salmon as they enter the ocean — and are thought by some to be responsible for the poor return of spawning adults. Researchers from the University of British Columbia set out to determine who was eating juvenile salmon, and when and where it was occurring by capturing and tracking harbour seals that carried cell-phone-like devices that recorded everything and everywhere the seals went.    In a recently published paper in the journal, Marine Ecology Progress Series, Hassen Allegue and colleagues report that only a few of the seals they followed targetted outmigrating coho salmon. They were equally surprised when they discovered that the seals did not seem to take the smaller-bodied chinook, but appeared instead to target fish preying on juvenile chinook. Most of the feeding-type behaviours occurred as tide height rose (which were higher at dusk and night), especially during full moonlight.  These findings bring new insight into the complexity of the interactions between harbour seals and out-migrating coho and Chinook smolts. As the authors note, “they show the highly individualistic nature of seal predation, and suggest that there may be complex indirect effects associated with seals consuming fish that also prey on juvenile salmon.”  “Such confounding factors need to be addressed when considering broad conservation measures that might be taken against harbour seals to enhance the marine survival of salmonids.”

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