Flymph
Life of the Party
Source please.
CA Seals and Sealions eating all of WA Springers?
- Thread starter The Coho King
- Start date
Paige
Wishing I was fishing the Sauk
Long Live the Kings research has shown Steelhead smolts are heavily predated by pinnipeds but I haven't heard about Chinook smolts?
Steelhead smolts would be double or more the size of Chinook's
Dustin Chromers
Legend
This is true. I would figure timing as well as their size might be their only defense though as I doubt pinnipeds are making distinctions on a species level.
Here's a more recent study I have not read yet but based on the title it looks interesting and likely help answer your question.
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Dustin Chromers
Legend
WDFW bios. There are numerous studies that are very accessible to even an imprecise Google query. If you look you will find. What you won't find is frank conversations about the subject by those in the know and involved. I don't do people's work that shout "source!" as a means to stifle a discussion as their only motivation and reason. You're clearly a highly educated woman. Get to it and read some sources and add to the conversation rather than trying to shut it down cause it's not moving the direction you want.
Thanks
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Cowlitz Bottomfeeder
Life of the Party
Matt
Good try but none of that data is relevant with regards to what they might be eating at the hatchery pool by the Barrier Dam. Sturgeon occur but are rare. I don’t believe that there are any lamprey. Most of the Springers are still in the Columbia. There are some leftover winter Steelhead. Some sculpin. Maybe 2 chum in early winter. And many thousands of chinook smolt up to 13”.
Ahhh, many people are saying (even though no one in the know is talking about it)
. I don't see asking for a source is in any way an effort to stifle discussion."Pinniped consumption of juvenile Chinook salmon was a substantial component of predation mortality coastwide, but particularly in the Salish Sea. Of the estimated 27.4 million Chinook salmon consumed coastwide by harbor seals in 2015 (Fig. 3), 23.2 million were smolts consumed in the Salish Sea. The percentage of the total coastwide smolt production consumed by harbor seals increased from 1.5% (3.5 million consumed out of 236.8 million estimated total production) in 1975 to 6.5% (27.4 million consumed out of 423.4 million estimated total production) in 2015. Harbor seals in the Salish Sea (i.e. Puget Sound, Strait of Georgia, and Strait of San Juan de Fuca) accounted for 86.4% of the total coast wide smolt consumption in 2015, due to large increases in the harbor seal abundance in this region between 1975 and 2015 (8,600 to 77,800), as well as a large diet fraction of Chinook salmon smolts relative to other regions (see supplemental material)." (my bold)
Competing tradeoffs between increasing marine mammal predation and fisheries harvest of Chinook salmon - Scientific Reports
Many marine mammal predators, particularly pinnipeds, have increased in abundance in recent decades, generating new challenges for balancing human uses with recovery goals via ecosystem-based management. We used a spatio-temporal bioenergetics model of the Northeast Pacific Ocean to quantify how...
www.nature.com
Note: These results were based on bioenergetic and chinook salmon lifecycle modeling, not direct measures.
"Hassen found that the harbor seals present during spring in the Big Qualicum Estuary could be grouped into 4 types of foragers. While about half of the seals fed in the estuary where smolts were present, only a small portion (18%) of these seals were actually salmon smolt specialists. While these “smolt-specialist” seals appeared to target the coho smolts in the river mouth, they apparently ignored the Chinook smolts, which left the river just a few days later. However, there was a second group of seals (18%) that seemed to target larger species of fish preying on the out-migrating Chinook smolts. The two other seal groups did not feed at the river mouth in association with the concentrated numbers of smolts, but either fed near their main haul-out sites away from the river (52%), or were transient and left the estuary area all together (12%)."into-the-field-harbor-seals-prey-on-salmon-smolts
Predation of smolts is more difficult to discern than predation on adult salmon because smolt earned dissolve in the gut and may not be present in pinniped fecal samples and pinnipeds can consume smolts underwater whereas adults are often seen being eaten on the surface.
Pinniped and Seabird Predation: Implications for Recovery of ...Oregon State Universityhttps://ir.library.oregonstate.edu › downloads
There seems to be more evidence for pinniped predation on steelhead smolts than salmon smolts.
It's just not that hard to be courteous, but I guess this is coming from someone who as a matter of course always provides sources when making "authoritative" statements, part of the rigor of academic training.
Though I don't have a dog in this fight, I too would be very interested in @Dustin Chromers sources, the more evidence and confirming studies, the stronger the argument. On the other hand, if anyone has contradictory evidence, it would be useful to see that.
Cheers
Flymph
Life of the Party
Good thing I looked back at your edited version. Just a few clarifications; last time I looked I was a man so you have me mixed up with someone else. "Source Please" was not a shout but an attempt for you to back up the following: "Outgoing smolt from the Nisqually are heavily predated by pinnipeds. But nobody is talking about that. It's an unpopular and inconvenient fact. There are in fact seals that are specialising in the activity. It's probably a major limiting factor with production on that stream."
When I see the word fact stated twice I assume the author can back up those facts which you did not in your unedited reply. Your additional commentary is your opinion based on what seems to be your bitterness toward someone else.
Dustin Chromers
Legend
Do your own research sir. My bitterness stems from the same individuals yelling "source!" as a tactic to stifle genuine discussion along with your snarky emoticon program. It shouldn't take you more than a few minutes to find articles published by the WDFW and other organisations on the subject.
Dustin Chromers
Legend
Ahhh, many people are saying (even though no one in the know is talking about it)
"Pinniped consumption of juvenile Chinook salmon was a substantial component of predation mortality coastwide, but particularly in the Salish Sea. Of the estimated 27.4 million Chinook salmon consumed coastwide by harbor seals in 2015 (Fig. 3), 23.2 million were smolts consumed in the Salish Sea. The percentage of the total coastwide smolt production consumed by harbor seals increased from 1.5% (3.5 million consumed out of 236.8 million estimated total production) in 1975 to 6.5% (27.4 million consumed out of 423.4 million estimated total production) in 2015. Harbor seals in the Salish Sea (i.e. Puget Sound, Strait of Georgia, and Strait of San Juan de Fuca) accounted for 86.4% of the total coast wide smolt consumption in 2015, due to large increases in the harbor seal abundance in this region between 1975 and 2015 (8,600 to 77,800), as well as a large diet fraction of Chinook salmon smolts relative to other regions (see supplemental material)." (my bold)
Competing tradeoffs between increasing marine mammal predation and fisheries harvest of Chinook salmon - Scientific Reports
Many marine mammal predators, particularly pinnipeds, have increased in abundance in recent decades, generating new challenges for balancing human uses with recovery goals via ecosystem-based management. We used a spatio-temporal bioenergetics model of the Northeast Pacific Ocean to quantify how...
Note: These results were based on bioenergetic and chinook salmon lifecycle modeling, not direct measures.
"Hassen found that the harbor seals present during spring in the Big Qualicum Estuary could be grouped into 4 types of foragers. While about half of the seals fed in the estuary where smolts were present, only a small portion (18%) of these seals were actually salmon smolt specialists. While these “smolt-specialist” seals appeared to target the coho smolts in the river mouth, they apparently ignored the Chinook smolts, which left the river just a few days later. However, there was a second group of seals (18%) that seemed to target larger species of fish preying on the out-migrating Chinook smolts. The two other seal groups did not feed at the river mouth in association with the concentrated numbers of smolts, but either fed near their main haul-out sites away from the river (52%), or were transient and left the estuary area all together (12%)."into-the-field-harbor-seals-prey-on-salmon-smolts
Predation of smolts is more difficult to discern than predation on adult salmon because smolt earned dissolve in the gut and may not be present in pinniped fecal samples and pinnipeds can consume smolts underwater whereas adults are often seen being eaten on the surface.
Pinniped and Seabird Predation: Implications for Recovery of ...Oregon State Universityhttps://ir.library.oregonstate.edu › downloads
There seems to be more evidence for pinniped predation on steelhead smolts than salmon smolts.
It's just not that hard to be courteous, but I guess this is coming from someone who as a matter of course always provides sources when making "authoritative" statements, part of the rigor of academic training.
Though I don't have a dog in this fight, I too would be very interested in @Dustin Chromers sources, the more evidence and confirming studies, the stronger the argument. On the other hand, if anyone has contradictory evidence, it would be useful to see that.
Cheers
You're correct in that there is more info available for steelhead smolt predation. It's largely harbour seals. Chinook smolts are smaller and perhaps ignored more because of that. I don't know really. I've not seen anything that fleshes out why or if that's even the case. It would stand to reason a smolt of a size enough to get interest from any predator would not be left because of a species preference. Who knows though, maybe steelhead smolt taste like candy and kings not so much.
I wasn’t trying anything. I remembered reading information about stomach contents of the euthanized sea lions, and I posted a screenshot of that information. I haven’t found anything yet showing sea lions keying into smolts in the rivers. I have seen a few studies showing harbor seals in river estuaries sometimes specialize in feeding on smolts. If you have anything showing sea lions feeding on smolts in the river, please share it.
Flymph
Life of the Party
This is the Bullshit name calling that has been pleasantly absent from this board for some time. "They are going after" for you sounds ominous. For me it sounds like they are trying to save what little is left! But then, I am one of the evil Communist tree huggers you speak of and damn proud of it!
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yours was a "snarky" emoticon out of all the likes. If you get butt burned by emoticons don't post them! Be sure that I will not ask you to back up your "facts" again.
Why in the world would someone not provide sources for data they are stating as fact, regardless of whether the data are easy to find or not. "Easy to find" for one person may not be so easy for another.
The goal should be information sharing, not an internet battle of wits.
The goal should be information sharing, not an internet battle of wits.
While I do not have an opinion of this I will surmise that the belief of a guess and feel that I imagine that I can conclude and declare a fact conceived from my mindless and pointless thoughts out weigh many of the thoughts in this thread.
"But a 1970s ban on the hunt and commercial harvests has allowed seals and sea lion populations to flourish."
Are sea lions and seals eating too much of B.C.’s salmon? The answer may lead to a cull
Photogenic they may be. But the mammals’ diet may be upsetting the balance of B.C.’s marine ecosystem.www.thestar.com
I wonder if that would work for fish?
And how's that been working out?
FinLuver
Native Oregonian…1846
That could be any issue/topic of discussion for societal’s ills/decision making. Constant reaction to reaction.
Hi Dustin -
I was curious about this statement. So I went to google, and in the search bar I typed in "Nisqually Pinniped". Thinking this would be a good place to start for an individual who was curious about this statement such as myself and was genuinely looking for a source of more information. I was delighted to find that the very first link lead me to quite a comprehensive study on pinnipeds titled: Pinniped Predation on Salmonids in the Washington Portions of the Salish Sea and Outer Coast. Eureka! I'm 5 seconds into my quest for knowledge and I've hit the jackpot. Rest assured though, I didn't quit there - the quest for knowledge continued. I then typed "nisqually" into the document search query and lo and behold, there were some hits! The first hit took me to a very nice chart (figure 9) on population size of selected wild stocks of coho. And while interesting, not quite exactly what I was looking for. But, despite my effort being pretty sizeable (roughly 20 seconds at this point), I decided not to quit, and pursue onward. So, I proceeded to review the second hit for the search query "nisqually", and would you believe what I found!!?? Look at this (below) here! It says that there was a recent study that found exactly what you said!! I'm definitely going to research this further when I have more time, but for now, the 45 seconds it took me to find this information all on my own is all I have to give this particular topic. Frankly, I'm pretty exhausted!! Perhpas Moore et al. will have to wait until tonight, when I have a moment to stretch out and relax along with a glass of fine red wine. Anyway, thanks for peaking my curiosity!!
