Carcassman - thank you for that clarification and additional information pertaining to fresh versus saltwater rearing residualization rates.

Milt - You are correct that there are lots of probable causative factors and little research having been done. That is certainly a part of the problem. Note that I did not attribute all of the decrease to only seal predation. But I do believe that if seals eat salmon (as well as what salmon feed upon) and if seals in P.S. consume some 30 million pounds of food per year it is reasonable to assume there is a much greater adverse impact than when there were 200 seals eating roughly 400,000 pounds. Even if only 1% (pure speculation and for math purposes) is from the delayed release blackmouth program that would be 300,000 pounds per year which equates to a lot of sub-22 inch fish. We can't simply ignore the 800# gorilla at the table when looking at the future of this program.