image: Harbor seals haul out individually or in groups, and are traditionally counted while maximum numbers are ashore. This study used a reverse approach, primarily surveying for seals in the water. view more
Credit: Marc. A. Webber, The Marine Mammal Center
Over 10,000 harbor seals estimated to live in the inland waters of Washington State, the majority in the Northern Inland Waters, according to sea count surveys and tagging data from 2013 to 2016.
###
Article Title: Estimating the stock size of harbor seals (Phoca vitulina richardii) in the inland waters of Washington State using line-transect methods
Funding: Funding for the aerial surveys was provided by the US Navy and US National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML)/NMFS. Additional analysis funds were provided by the Puget Sound Partnership and Long Live the Kings. We are grateful also to HDR, Inc. and especially to K. Ampela for assistance in funding surveys. The funders provided support in the form of salaries for authors [TAJ, MAS], but did not have any additional role in the data collection and analysis, or preparation of the manuscript. They only had a very minor role in study design suggestions, and decision to publish. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the 'author contributions' section.
Competing Interests: Two of the authors are associated with scientific consulting companies, Clymene Enterprises LLC [TAJ] and Smultea Environmental Sciences LLC [MS]. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241254
Journal
PLOS ONE