Hijack sort of....

If you were to look at the Puget Sound Rockfish Conservation Plan under paragraph 2.7.7 Food Web Dynamics you will notice that the writers identify 14,000 harbor seals in Puget Sound (essentially all inland waters) as of 2007. They then provide the approximate weight per seal of 140 pounds and say that their daily food consumption rates are approximately 4% of body weight. They go on to say that "based upon these numbers,the estimated consumption of food by harbor seals in Puget Sound is quite high (emphasis added), 2.2 million kg (over 5 million pounds)."

Well, math was never my strong suit BUT a quick computation using their numbers yields an annual food consumption of 28,616,000 pounds for 14,000 seals.

If the writers considered 5 millions pounds as being "quite high" I have to wonder how they will describe the correct figure of 28,616,000 pounds? Actually, I am still waiting for Staff to respond to this apparent error as presented during the Olympia rockfish plan meeting. Time period for comments closes 4 Jan 2010.

Oh, and seals now at 15,000 per WDFW (adjust upwards by 7%).

Will have to try the air horn underwater trick!