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Predator or Prey?

September 22, 2013

WHOI biologist Andrea Bogomolni spoke about some of Cape Cod’s most charismatic predators (and prey) during the WHOI public event White Sharks, Gray Seals on August 7, 2013. Bogomolni studies seals found off the coast of Cape Cod to better understand the role these marine mammals play as sentinels of the ocean ecosystem. Seals were bounty-hunted until the 1960s, said Bogomolni, under the belief that they were eating too many commercially important fish. Although seal hunting is no longer legal in the U.S., they are still vulnerable to entanglement, climate change, and habitat loss—as well as their number one predator, sharks.(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)