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In the 1900s, New England's harbor and gray seals were hunted to the brink of extinction due to bounty policies put in place to reduce their population. Although the bounty was dropped in 1962, seals continued to be hunted because of their perceived threat to the fishing industry. In 1972, seals became a protected species under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Since then, both harbor and gray seal populations have increased dramatically. This graph shows the harbor seal population in the Gulf of Maine from 1970 - 1995. If no other changes are made to the ecosystem, predict what you think would happen to the harbor seal population in the next 20 years. put it on a graph.

1 answer

To predict the harbor seal population in the Gulf of Maine over the next 20 years (from 1995 to 2015), we would start by analyzing the trends in the existing population data from 1970 to 1995.

  1. Identifying Trends:

    • If the population has been increasing steadily from 1970 to 1995, we can expect that the population trend will continue upwards unless affected by new variables (such as food availability, environmental changes, or human interference).
    • For an increasing population, a common model is logistic growth, where the population grows quickly at first and then slows as it reaches its carrying capacity.

  2. Extrapolation:

    • Assuming the growth trend continued, we could extend the line from the last data point in 1995 onward into the next two decades.
    • Let's say the population at 1995 was around a certain value (for the sake of argument, take 30,000 for illustration). If the population continued to grow, we could increase the population by a certain percentage each year based on average historical growth rates.

  3. Graph:

    • An x-axis representing the years from 1970 to 2015.
    • A y-axis showing the estimated harbor seal population.
    • Plot the existing data points from 1970 to 1995, then extend the curve for the next 20 years assuming continuous growth.

Here’s a simple representation if you were to visualize the growth:

Population (in thousands)
|
|                    *
|                  *
|                *
|          *
|       *
|    *
|  *
|*
|____________________________________
  1970  1980  1990  2000  2010  2015

Note: The actual numbers would depend on the specific data provided in the graph from 1970 to 1995. You would plot points at intervals (e.g., every five years) based on the expected growth rate, possibly adjusting upwards smoothly toward a potential carrying capacity based on ecological factors.

In summary, if conditions remained stable, the expectation would be for the harbor seal population to continue increasing toward its ecological carrying capacity in the Gulf of Maine over the next 20 years.