The opportunistic feeding of northern fur seals off California

Details

• Personal Author:
  Pacific Coast (Calif.)
• Corporate Authors:
  Kajimura, Hiroshi
• Conference Authors:
  National Marine Mammal Laboratory (U.S.) ; Northwest and Alaska Fisheries Center (U.S.)
• NOAA Program & Office:
  NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) ; AFSC (Alaska Fisheries Science Center) ; NWFSC (Northwest Fisheries Science Center)
• Description:
  In this paper it is shown that fur seals are opportunistic feeders preying on the most readily available species in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. Temporally and spatially, the information used in reaching this conclusion was obtained in the area off California from January through June in each of 6 years. As shown in Table 9 by Lander and Kajimura (1976), the principal food of fur seals in a given area as based on stomach content volume generally does not change even though the ranking by volume within this list may change. The leading four prey species consumed by fur seals during each of the collection years off California (1958, 1959, 1961, 1964, 1965, and 1966) contributed 82-99 percent of the total stomach content volume during these years. Six prey species formed the major food of fur seals during the collection period and, as will be shown it may be concluded that these prey species were the most available food resource available to fur seals off California. The abundance, distribution and availability of their major prey species will be discussed to show the opportunistic feeding of fur seals off California.
• Keywords:
  The opportunistic feeding of northern fur seals off California
• Format:
  PDF
• Document Type:
  Non-series Report
• Name as Subject:
  In this paper it is shown that fur seals are opportunistic feeders preying on the most readily available species in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. Temporally and spatially, the information used in reaching this conclusion was obtained in the area off California from January through June in each of 6 years. As shown in Table 9 by Lander and Kajimura (1976), the principal food of fur seals in a given area as based on stomach content volume generally does not change even though the ranking by volume within this list may change. The leading four prey species consumed by fur seals during each of the collection years off California (1958, 1959, 1961, 1964, 1965, and 1966) contributed 82-99 percent of the total stomach content volume during these years. Six prey species formed the major food of fur seals during the collection period and, as will be shown it may be concluded that these prey species were the most available food resource available to fur seals off California. The abundance, distribution and availability of their major prey species will be discussed to show the opportunistic feeding of fur seals off California.
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC0 Public Domain
• Compliance:
  Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:287613813b76a64b7652aa1bd158d18ae24c2fc48320214ede9f143f4b34af91
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/50205/noaa_50205_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 13.11 MB ]