Grey Seal Diet and Foraging in the Îles de la Madeleine Area

Description

In the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, the failure of Atlantic Cod and Hake stocks to recover from decades of overfishing has been attributed to the high mortality rate of large fish. Predation by Grey Seals is considered to be a key component of this mortality, though evidence that seals consume a lot of large fish is limited to the Cabot Strait, where cod overwinter. More data is necessary to determine whether cod are important prey for seals in the Îles de la Madeleine area, where cod also gather in the fall.

To address this knowledge gap, researchers will collect information on Grey Seals in and around Îles de la Madeleine. Satellite tagging will shed light on their foraging behaviour and potentially identify foraging hotspots, while dietary composition will be determined by analysing the digestive tracts of Grey Seals collected by hunters. These samples will help to determine reproductive rates, contributing to a seal population model. The new data, combined with information from groundfish trawl surveys, will provide fisheries management with a better understanding of ecosystem processes in the area, and the contribution of seal predation to overall cod mortality and the failure of cod stocks to recover in NAFO Area 4T.

Program Name

Fisheries Science Collaborative Program (FSCP)

Year(s)

2011 - 2015

Ecoregion(s)

Atlantic: Gulf of St. Lawrence, St. Lawrence Estuary

Principal Investigator(s)

Mike Hammill
Fisheries and Oceans Canada