Sandra Granquist, employee of the Institute of Freshwater Fisheries and head of seal research at the The Icelandic Seal Center recently received a grant from the Royal Swedish Academy of Science for her studies on the foraging system of harbour seals in Iceland. The aim of the project is to assess the importance of salmonids (salmon, trout and charr) in the food of harbour seals by using stable isotope analysis. The method is well known from archaeology research and further often used by biologist to give indications of the position of animal species in the food chain as well as the proportion of food that cosists of freshwater species vs. marine species. Therefore, the study will indicate how much salmonid species that harbour seals are likely to consume.
Sandra Granquist