When you consider the size difference between the whales and seals it will take a lot of removals to feed one whale. Just using made-up numbers, if a whale eats 10 salmon a day and a seal 1, then 10 seals need removal (and no additional fishery removals) to feed one whale. That would mean remove 700 pinnipeds for the whales alone. Annually, until the salmon numbers rebound enough to feed the whales and pinnipeds.

Removals of the pinnipeds need some serious analysis, as you noted, of the where, when, and how many. I still think that the whole push in the Columbia is for fishermen and not whales as the salmon have already bypassed the whales before hitting the river. But, whales get more sympathy than fisher people.