Predation by Freshwater Seals on the Fish Community of Lower Seal Lake, Quebec
Authors:
- G. PowerGPG. Power
- Jean GregoireJGJean Gregoire
- 1 June 1978
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Canadian Science Publishing in Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada
- Vol. 35 (6) , 844-850
Abstract
The presence of freshwater harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) in Lower Seal Lake, Quebec, has drastically modified the lake's fish community. Lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) are the most affected; they are small (rarely exceed 55 cm fork length), their growth rate is faster than in neighboring lakes, their longevity is greatly reduced, the age at sexual maturity has been halved, and individual fecundity per unit weight has increased at the expense of egg diameter. Brook trout (S. fontinalis), the dominant fish species in the lake, show evidence of high mortality rates in the lake, but are protected during the vulnerable spawning period because their spawning sites are dispersed in tributary streams. Rough calculation suggests the seal population is small and that it consumes the lake's potential yield of fish annually. Key words: predation, freshwater seals, Phoca vitulina, Salvelinus namaycush, Salvelinus fontinalisKeywords
This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:
- Fish Population Structure in Arctic LakesJournal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 1978
- Ecology of Arctic Populations of Lake Trout, Salvelinus namaycush, Lake Whitefish, Coregonus clupeaformis, Arctic Char, S. alpinus, and Associated Species in Unexploited Lakes of the Canadian Northwest TerritoriesJournal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 1976
- Distribution of the Harbor Seal, Phoca vitulina Linnaeus, in Canadian Arctic WatersJournal of Mammalogy, 1967