Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: IronNoggin on July 04, 2020, 11:01:33 AM
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Recent paper published by Dr. Carl Walters on decline of Fraser River Sockeye and link to Sealions
https://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum/index.php?attachments/steller-sea-lion-sockeye-impact-2020-pdf.54477/
Dr. Walters will also be publishing another paper very soon relating to herring predation by the same.
Nog
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need to be a member to read.
so what's the readers digest version?
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need to be a member to read.
so what's the readers digest version?
Kill the pinnipeds, surely, based on the title in the URL and the fact it was posted by Nog :P
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https://afspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/fsh.10488
Abstract
The commercially, recreationally and culturally important Fraser River Sockeye Salmon Oncorhynchus nerka have experienced a productivity decline over the last three decades, which along with greater temporal variation in annual abundance (i.e. cyclic dominance) may at least partly be due to Steller Sea Lion Eumetopias jubatus (SSL) predation on returning adult salmon. This assumes that SSL residing around northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada target Sockeye Salmon for just a few weeks during the peak of their run. It is a reasonable enough assumption to warrant immediate priority for field research on SSL behaviour and diets during the migration period. We evaluate the plausibility of the hypotheses with a variety of approaches ranging from simple estimates of maximum SSL consumption to partitioning of observed marine mortality rates and analysis of SSL foraging behavior to show that SSL could have caused the decline in productivity and abundance of Fraser River Sockeye Salmon.