Would anyone else like to hear WDFW weigh in on this seal issue ? The number of seals and sea lions has increased significantly since this report was written.

More info from NOAA, available at this web-site;
http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/publications/techmemos/tm45/risk.htm

The WDFW fishing regulations have reduced human exploitation rates to low levels, however, pinniped exploitation of herring may have increased. Herring-survey biologists have observed increased nocturnal occurrences of harbor seals near schools of herring and concurrent changes in herring schooling behavior (West 1997).

Two species of pinnipeds, California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) and Pacific harbor seal (Phoca vitulina), that are common in Puget Sound and British Columbia exploit herring. Schmitt et al. (1995) estimated that herring comprised 6% of the diet of California sea lions in Puget Sound during the 1986-1994 period. Total fish consumption by California sea lions in Puget Sound was estimated to be 830 mt per year (NMFS 1997). Thus about 50 mt (0.06 X 830) of herring were consumed by California sea lions per year in Puget Sound during the 1986-1994 period. Large aggregations of California sea lions were not reported in Puget Sound until 1979 (Schmitt et al. 1995), numbers increased through 1986, and then fluctuated without trend (Schmitt et al. 1995, and J. Laake6). California sea lions also occur in British Columbia waters but estimates of their consumption of herring were not available.

More data are available on Pacific harbor seals in British Columbia waters than for Puget Sound. Olesiuk et al. (1990) estimated that harbor seals consumed 3,206 mt of herring in the Canadian Strait of Georgia (CSG) during 1988, which represented 9.6% of the herring spawning biomass (Table 5). They estimated that herring comprised 32.4% of harbor seal diet in 1988. NMFS (1997) estimated that harbor seals consumed 14,997 mt of prey in Washington inland waters during 1993. If herring comprised 32.4% of the diet of Washington harbor seals, they would have consumed 4,859 mt (5,356 tons) of herring in Washington�s inland waters in 1993, which represented 34.9% of estimates of spawning biomass of herring for 1993 (Table 6). While herring biomass was not estimated for all areas and harbor seals consume immature as well as mature herring, it appears that harbor seals could be a significant source of mortality for Washington populations of herring and could account for some of the increases estimated for non-fishing mortality (Bargmann 1998). NMFS (1997) estimated that harbor seals in Washington waters increased at 7.7% annually between 1978 and 1993. They did not provide rate of increase for inland waters alone. Herring are also reported to be an important prey item for harbor porpoises in the Strait of Juan de Fuca (Gearin et al. 1994).