November 25, 2013 — A young steelhead salmon has about a 30 percent chance of being eaten by Western gulls during its transit to sea through creek mouths in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, according to a new study by California Sea Grant-funded researchers.
Gauntlets of gulls lining narrow streams may consume anywhere from 7-83 percent of young steelhead in the Waddell, Scott and Gazos watershed mouths, according to the study found here. “We have thought of the ocean as this big dangerous place,” said Sean Hayes, a co-investigator on the Sea Grant project and a salmon ecologist at NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center. “But, it may be that the last 200 or 300 meters of a river and estuary are the most dangerous. These fish are literally being scooped out right before they enter the ocean.”
Read the full story at Capitola-Soquel Patch