Sea Lions who visit the Columbia River are Being Killed for eating Fish

Run time: 07:57 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1IjdLqcuZw   Posted on YouTube: June 29, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: June 30, 2009 By DU Member: Annces Views on DU: 1187

 
Sea Lions make their home in California. In the spring, some males travel north and come to the Columbia River to feed. According to studies, the sea lions 0.4 to 4% of the salmon population. Fisherman eat 14% of the salmon. And Oregon Fish and Wildlife has been increasing the quota for the amount of salmon that fisherman can catch. Also the dams are responsible for devastation of natural salmon populations also. The sea lions are being killed for no sound reason, other than eating a small percentage of fish, which is their right to eat in the first place.

Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission
odfw.commission@state.or.us

Washington State Fish and Wildlife
commission@dfw.wa.gov

Live seal cam at Ano Nuevo Reserve, California
http://www.parks.ca.gov/popup/main.asp


Humane Society Law Suits to stop the killing
http://www.hsus.org/press_and_publications/press_releases/federal_court_blocks_bonneville_dam_sea_lion_kill_042308.html

because they were eating 'our' fish?

I guess it's not surprising. We kill each other for resources, why would we even pause about killing an animal?

"Take it, rape it, it's yours."

:cry:

they are taking advantage of the fish saving things by the damn and the seals are using it like a buffet. they have tried many other ways to stop the seals. so far nothing works. just think of them like geese that don't migrate. or bears at a dump.

chemicals from lawns, roads, tilt the balance against the salmon.

Sea lions have always co-existed with salmon. It's humans which have upset the balance that used to exist.

But this is a problem. They don't even eat the whole fish, they just sit there and take a bite out of whatever passes by. It's not normal predatory behavior. I like the comparison above, that this is like bears eating from dumpsters. It's not normal, it should not be tolerated.

Do they need to be shot? Maybe there is another solution. We've tried moving them, they come back.
Yeah, maybe there's something that can be done to help restore the natural paths that the fish use, but right now, we have a problem. Also, I don't buy the OP's claim about the fishing quotas. I went for rock fish last year, because the salmon season was cut off mid-trip, early, unexpectedly.

Took my thoughts exactly. Another way to rid them is always worth a shot...but they have been trying and failing with everything to date. Doesn't mean they can't keep trying...but in the meantime, something has to be done.

sealions went on long before the last 50 years. The salmon population did fine before millions of humans descended on the area, even WITH the sealions.

Salmon and other anadromous species need free access to their spawning grounds. When they reach their final destination, there must be an adequate flow of clean water. If migrating fish whack their nose on concrete, nothing good is going to follow.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with what your saying, esp. about the human factor. But failing to take the toil of Hydro facilities on the ocean's food chain, leaves too much out of the equation.

Washington would be fooked without the dams. Completely. We get 73% of our power from those dams. 9% nuclear. 18% from coal and gas.

But that's got little to do with the Seals directly. The seals are taking advantage of the human concentration of the fish runs to get around the dams, and other human construction. They are no longer behaving like normal predators. If we left them to gorge on the salmon at the gates, they would still not be behaving 'naturally'.

We've spent a lot of money on non-lethal solutions.. It's just not an environment where you can conserve both species. They need to be separated. The seals are smart enough to come back when we move them.. soo... Dunno. Not a lot of options, unfortunately.

Most wild critters look for the easiest meal. It's what consumes most of their time and energy.

It's normal for a deer to run away from me this time of year when I'm out back in the woodlot. It's also normal for that same deer to seek me out, and stand within mere feet of me if the snow is deep and I'm knocking down trees. The tops are an easy meal, and the twitch trails make traveling a lot less expensive, calorie wise

As long as the seals view that lure of an easy meal as worth the risk, they'll opt for the sushi bar. If the food is too plentiful, they will become wasteful. A bit here, another there.

The salmon are at risk due to a wide range of man created hazards. Dams are near the top of the ladder for a variety of reasons. You can pour the lead to the seals, and that will take care of the current crop, but they will continuously be replaced until the seal population in that area becomes numbered to few to make a dent in the anadromous fish runs.

Cormorants were doing a number on Atlantic Salmon every time the hatcheries tried to charge a river here in Maine with a new batch of smolts. The cormorants (aka shags) were doing what comes natural. In an effort to stop the smorgasbord, game officials tried the 12ga approach. It had limited success.

It took a while, but finally it was realized what was missing, was the rest of the ecosystem. If the rivers are full of alewife and shad at the same time the salmon are heading seaward, the toll from the shags becomes insignificant.

You may be toast without the Hydro power, the fish are screwed with it. And the seals just want to earn a living with as little effort as possible.

Until a way is arrived upon that allows the salmon to keep a strong pace upstream, the seals will always be looked at as the problem. Don't lose sight of the fact that the turbines are taking a huge toll on the outward migrations, further threatening the survivability of future runs.

http://www.nrcm.org/issue_edwardsdam.asp

Learn from our (Maine's) mistakes, and also our current approach...use above link

Tight lines!

the genetic diversity of wild run steelhead & salmon is under threat .... if not the future of the fish it's self.
The sea lions wait at the dams and clean up. And yes removal of some dams and restoration of the fish's natural
spawning range, preservation of the forests, all need to be done too.

Wild run trout & salmon are worth billions to the economy & to the ecology too. Besides they taste great.

Quite a lot of the images of "California Sea Lions" were actually Northern Fur Seals and Stellar Sea Lions and one was of a Harbor Seal.

A lot of folks take a liking to California Sea Lions cause they have an eerie similarity to dogs in their behavior and their intelligence, and not to forget the human habit of anthropomorhism which get REALLY applied to sea lions.

I don't have a particular fondness for CA sea lions having been around them FAR too much: they can be outright nasty creatures........

Humans don't help the matter by their anthropomorphic attachment to the critters that reult in the sea lions becoming "trained" to expect "goodies" from humans.

People REALLY need to keep in mind the rule of "fed bears = dead bears" applies as well to CA sea lions.

Once again, another example of the arrogance of humans, messing with nature to server their selfish desires.

Animals eat other animals. That's just how it works. It's not our right to kill other animals because they are eating other animals, what comes naturally to them.

As others have already pointed out, it's us humans that have done things to devastate the salmon populations (and many other animal populations). Blaming sea lions, worse yet, killing them, in the interest of salmon runs is insanely fucked up! And anyone who supports this is just as insane...and arrogant.

The sad fact is that the numbers of some species of returning Salmon are getting dangerously low. The hard choices are right off "suck factor" charts.

simple solution stop fishing salmon, start hunting sea lion.

I might be out of line here, just taking it to it's logical conclusion. Hunting only premited at dams and the sea lion will start avoiding dam's like dear avoid humans during hunting season.