# Drivers of population dynamics and juvenile mortality in Northwest Atlantic harp seals

## TL;DR

This study examines how human and environmental factors affect harp seal populations in the North Atlantic, finding that climate-related ice changes now strongly impact young seals.

## Contribution

The study introduces a hierarchical Bayesian IPM to assess the shifting roles of anthropogenic and environmental factors in harp seal population dynamics.

## Key findings

- Harvests of young and adult seals were the main drivers of population trends from 1951 to 1982.
- After 1983, natural mortality, especially for young seals, became more significant due to environmental changes.
- Climate-related ice cover anomalies since 2000 are now a major driver of young seal mortality.

## Abstract

Human‐induced threats to terrestrial and marine wildlife are on the rise, and while some species face a single major threat, others face multiple concurrent threats. Harp seals, an abundant pinniped in the North Atlantic that was historically depleted by human harvest, are one such species. Although commercial and subsistence harvests remain a significant source of mortality, in recent decades their environment has undergone significant changes, which could also impact population dynamics. Inferring the relative importance of various threats as drivers of population dynamics can be challenging, particularly for marine species where monitoring abundance is difficult: the use of integrated population models (IPMs), which leverage multiple data sources to parameterize process‐based models of population dynamics, provides one solution. We developed a hierarchical Bayesian IPM with which to explore the shifting roles of anthropogenic and environmental factors in driving trends. We used a competing hazards formulation for survival, enabling the partitioning of mortality into multiple discreet causes and allowing us to assess variation in hazards over 7 decades (1952–2019). We fit the model to available data on pup production, fecundity, age structure, human removals, and environmental conditions. We conducted a Bayesian life stage simulation analysis (LSA) to compare the contributions of various hazards to variation in population growth. We found that harvests of young of the year (YOY) and adults were the primary contributors to variation in trends from 1951 to 1982; however, after 1983, the relative importance of harvest mortality decreased while the impacts of natural mortality increased, especially for YOY. Since 2000, the impacts of YOY mortality from ice cover anomalies have become one of the strongest drivers of trends, while harvest mortality has declined. Based on current climate models, which project warmer water and decreasing ice cover, we expect continued high levels of YOY mortality from environmental factors such as deteriorating ice conditions. These climate‐related hazards are likely to become the dominant drivers of population dynamics in coming decades, which will in turn affect sustainable harvest levels for both Canada and Greenland. Our model will provide a useful tool for exploring future scenarios of climate impacts and management strategies.