Sea lion decline linked to 'junk food' fish

Three decades after a change in ocean climate began creeping into the North Pacific, a team of scientists asserts with unprecedented vigor in a new report that the change is the central culprit in the crash of Alaska's western sea lion population.

Andrew Trites of the University of British Columbia joined 27 scientists ranging from oceanographers to anthropologists in publishing the hypothesis and its evidence in the January issue of Fisheries Oceanography. The ocean still teems with fish, he said, but it's a different mix that now thrives.

"It's still a healthy system; it's just different," he said.

As a leading proponent of the so-called "junk food" theory -- that Steller sea lions in the Gulf of Alaska and the Aleutians are eating fish of lesser energy value than they once got -- Trites said his argument is now more forceful because it includes more parts of the puzzle.

from the Anchorage Daily News