The California sea lions that snarfed up 3,000
chinook salmon at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River have finally
headed south to mate. But their big appetites this spring have some
fishermen calling for the quick removal and even killing of the
protected mammals.
“Our fishermen are very concerned.
It’s their livelihood and they are going to take a more
extreme view against the sea lions,” says Olney Patt Jr., executive
director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Council, which
represents the Nez Perce, Yakima and several other tribes.
Biologists estimate that about 100 sea lions noshed
through nearly 4 percent of this year’s already small salmon
run. Patt says their rapacity would have gone “unnoticed” in a
normal year. But this year, he says, the salmon runs were so low
that they didn’t even fulfill the tribes’ ceremonial
and subsistence takes (HCN, 6/13/05: For salmon, a crucial moment
of decision). Only 82,000 fish returned, compared to more than
180,000 in 2004. In April, the Inter-Tribal Fish Council sent
letters to Oregon and Washington state wildlife managers,
requesting that they seek federal permission to remove and even
kill problem sea lions. Sea lions are protected under the Marine
Mammal Protection Act.
Federal and state wildlife
managers have been hazing the animals, using firecrackers,
underwater sound systems, rubber-tipped arrows and rubber bullets.
They also recently built a $100,000 underwater fence that blocks
access to one of the fish ladders.
Plans are under way to
build a new sound system and install fences on each of the
dam’s fish ladders before the sea lions return to the “little
fish buffet” next spring, says Army Corps of Engineers spokeswoman
Diana Fredlund.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Hungry sea lions put salmon-savers in a bind.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
