Pollock Conservation Cooperative Research Center
2000 Awarded Research Projects
Interactions among Steller sea lions, pollock and herring and an examination of variability associated with acoustic surveys of pollock
Richard Thorne, Gary Thomas, John Goering
Award: $40,000
Estimated Completion: January 31, 2002
Abstract
The background for this project is found in eight preceding years of herring surveys and four preceding annual estimates ofpollock in Prince William Sound (PWS) conducted by the Prince William Sound Science Center. The pollock surveys suggested a temporal sourceofvariabilitythatcouldaffecttheaccuracy ofacousticsurveysforpollock. In addition, during herring surveys in March 2000, an infrared scanner detected intense nighttime foraging activity of Steller sea lions on the overwintering herring schools. This observation, subsequently published in NATURE (VoL 411: 1013), indicated that the Steller sea lions in PWS targeted herring schools during the overwinter period to the exclusion ofpollock. Consequently, funding from the Pollock Conservation Cooperative (PCC) was requested to explore the implications of these observations.
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