Hatcheries are being blamed when Seals and Sealions are wiping out our fish.
Greg brought this up to Murrays staff.

55% of the Strait of Georgia chinook and coho are being eaten by harbor seals
There are now 40,000 harbor seals in the Strait of Georgia

The US side of the Salish Sea has 20,000 Harbor seals and Long Live the Kings has a study that is showing the same thing. They are eating our salmon and steelhead.

These studies only show harbor seals and does not account for the sea lions.

There was a tagging study done for steelhead in the South Sound. Out of every 10 steelhead tagged, between 8 and 9 of the tages ended up found in seal scat!

But hatcheries are being blamed as the culprit. The coast has the same problems with the sealions.


I would have guessed the cormorant scat would have been the culprit. My bad.

So based on these findings what has been shown to be the primary, welfare program mirroring food source, that has aided in the explosion in seal and sea lion populations?