Are harbour seal populations endangered?
• The harbour seal is the most common of all the temperate-water seals. • Between 1913 and 1970, the combination of a bounty implemented by Fisheries and Oceans Canada and extensive hunting of the harbour seal for its pelt lowered seal populations dramatically. • Pacific harbour seal populations have recovered and are approaching historical records in B.C., with more than 127,000 individuals counted during a 1998 aerial survey. What do harbour seals eat? • Preliminary studies analyzing harbour seal scat (feces) for bones and hard parts, indicate that the majority of their diet consists of small reef or shallow dwelling fishes including rockfishes, greenlings, smelt, perch, and some herring and flatfishes. • In the Strait of Georgia, a large component of their diet is hake, a deep-water fish. Seasonally, harbour seals eat salmonids as these fishes enter and leave the rivers. • Adult seals typically eat 3-5 kg of food per day. How does the harbour seal reproduce? • Mating generally occur
