CHATHAM, Mass. – A Chatham fisherman is seeking support for an official study of the gray seal population in Cape Cod waters to see if, as he suspects, their numbers are having a negative effect on local fish stocks.

Paul Bremser believes the seal population on Chatham’s Monomoy Island and South Beach shores has been depleting cod, haddock and flounder, among other species.

Gray seals, 600- to 1,000-pound animals with distinctive horselike heads, are protected under the federal 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Bremser said he wants federal regulatory officials to do a study of the seals, he told the Cape Cod Times for a story published Friday.

“It’s to the point where we feel like we’re in heavy competition with them,” Bremser said.

The Cape Hook Fishermen’s Association “strongly supports” Bremser’s quest, Tom Rudolph, research director for the group, told Eastham selectmen on Monday.

Eastham and Chatham selectmen have endorsed Bremser’s proposal for research, and he also plans to go before boards in Orleans, Harwich, Wellfleet and Provincetown.

“Obviously, there’s sensitivity over this,” David Whitcomb, chairman of the Chatham selectman told the newspaper. “But the way (Bremser’s) going about it, with a study, seems to make sense.”

The town has been the site of federal wildlife projects to remove gulls and coyotes to protect endangered shore birds.

Chatham Harbor Master Stuart Smith, who hears from angry fishermen and happy tourists and seal-watching businesses, said the population “without question” has increased.

“I think a study is more than warranted,” he said.

Gordon Waring, fisheries research biologist at National Marine Fisheries Service in Woods Hole, said federal scientists would welcome more money for research, but funding is scarce.

A government study of gray seals on Cape Cod should also include colonies in Maine and Nova Scotia, said University of Maine seal expert James Gilbert, since the seals that became year-round inhabitants of Cape Cod in the late 1980s are from the same populations that live on Canada’s Sable Island and off the Maine coast.

Gilbert said the average gray seal will eat about 5 pounds of fish a day and venture up to 50 miles in search of food. Sand eels, which are plentiful off Monomoy Island, are a favorite.

Some fishermen are concerned that seals are carriers of parasitic cod worms that can infect commercial fish species, but Gilbert said no study has ever shown a relationship between the size of a seal population and a cod worm infestation.