While flying over the Copper River Delta in south central, Alaska, I grabbed a few frames of Harbor seals hauled out on a sand shoal along the river delta. They were pretty densely packed together and I was curious as to how many were present in the picture.
Field biologists have methods for counting and estimating populations by observation, and it does not included counting every single animal! However, if there is someone industrious out there who wants to chime in, I’m curious how many are in this frame. I included a tight crop just to show the animals a little better. My rough guess is that about 1000+ seals are in the full-frame shot. There were many more on adjacent and surrounding shores and ice ridges that had yet to melt.
