Some fishermen maintain that fur seals destroy large numbers of 

 salmon, so biologists have made efforts to evaluate the depredation. To 

 date, 4, 935 fur-seal stomachs have been collected and examined, many 

 of them where salmon were available at the time. Salmon flesh was 

 found in 72, or 1. 5 percent of the stomachs. Many of the stomachs were 

 taken by Indians along the coast where salmon are commonly found. Since 

 the majority of seals feed far at sea, the importance of salmon in their 

 year-round diet is probably less than 1 percent. During the salmon runs, 

 practically all fur seals are on or near their breeding islands in the Bering 

 Sea, where their food was found to consist largely of small fishes of the 

 cod and pollack family, sandfish, and sea poachers. 



Stomachs taken from adult female fur seals seldom contain as much 

 as 7 to 8 pounds of food. Seals in captivity may consume up to 14 percent 

 of their body weight in food per day. 



Fur seal, adult male. 

 Scale line: one inch. 



