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Despite protections, Oregon has killed hundreds of sea lions

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Salmon, Steelhead Set Back by Hungry Sea Lions

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Leaders urge action to stop ‘repeat offender’ sea lions eating salmon at Bonneville Dam

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Should seals and sea lions be hunted to save Chinook salmon?

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Growing sea lion population frustrates Columbia River anglers

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The Columbia River, surrounding waterways and the lasting effects on native fish.

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Species battle pits protected sea lions against fragile fish

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Sea lions are eating too many endangered salmon and steelhead in Oregon’s Columbia River, scientists say.

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Should Oregon Kill Sea Lions to Save the Salmon?

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Sea lions are scarfing the Columbia River’s already struggling salmon populations. Now some politicians want to kill them.

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Scapegoating Sea Lions Won’t Save Salmon

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Killing Sea Lions to Save Salmon Makes No Sense!

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Disastrous new plans to kill sea lions are now underway in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The government has approved plans to kill off hundreds of sea lions in the Columbia River basin so greedy fishers can continue making money by killing salmon.

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US allows killing sea lions eating at-risk Northwest salmon

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U.S. authorities have given wildlife managers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho permission to start killing hundreds of sea lions in the Columbia River basin in hopes of helping struggling salmon and steelhead

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Photo courtesy of ODFW

Congress has agreed to make it easier to kill sea lions threatening fragile runs of salmon in the Northwest.

A bill approved by the House Tuesday changes the Marine Mammal Protection Act to lift some of the restrictions on killing sea lions to protect salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River and its tributaries.

Managers say sea lion populations have grown so large that they no longer need all the protections that were put in place in 1972.

As their populations have grown, more and more sea lions have been making their way up rivers and eating threatened and endangered fish at choke points like Bonneville Dam and Willamette Falls.

In the past, Oregon and Washington have gone through a long regulatory process to get federal approval to kill sea lions.

The Endangered Salmon Predation Prevention Act had already cleared the Senate. If it is signed into law by President Trump, it would streamline the approval process for the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho as well as several Northwest Tribes.

The Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission welcomed the news that several tribes, including the Yakama, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Nez Perce, will now have the authority to manage sea lions.

"I suspect many would wish the times were different and this legislation wasn't necessary, said CRITFC executive director Jaime Pinkham. "But the reality is that this legislation has become necessary."

Under the bill's new rules, the total number of sea lions removed would be limited to prevent damage to sea lion populations.

Critics say sea lions are being unfairly blamed for problems that are actually caused by dams.

Fish managers say killing sea lions is the best option for saving saving certain runs of fish that can't wait for changes to dams because they're already at a high risk for extinction.

In a statement, U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., said he wants to make sure the money invested in salmon recovery isn't lost to sea lion predation.

"Billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on salmon recovery in the Pacific Northwest only to see invasive sea lions take a bite out of the population," he said.

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environment | environment | oregon | news | earthfix |

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Bill To Allow Killing Sea Lions To Help Northwest Salmon Heads To Trump's Desk

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Photo courtesy of ODFW Congress has agreed to make it easier to kill sea lions threatening fragile runs of salmon in the Northwest. A bill approved by the House Tuesday changes the Marine Mammal Protection Act to lift some of the restrictions on killing sea lions to protect salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River and its tributaries.

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Used to be, they'd show up at Willamette Falls around late November-beefy males here to bulk up and loll on the docks. Call it sea lion winter break; time off from California's Channel Islands rookeries, beaucoup steelhead to eat, zero problems. (No pups, no ladies, no predators.) When it was time to head back south, a 400-pound sea lion might have doubled in size, having chowed down on, at minimum, three 15-pound Pacific Northwest salmonids a day.

Nowadays, these party boys are arriving earlier and staying later. And they're not just loitering in Oregon City. They also mob the Columbia River, particularly around January, for chinook on their way to spawning grounds-eating, by one report, as much as 45 percent of some salmon runs, a feast season that now draws out through June.

"They've learned that in April and May there's a pretty good buffet," says Robert Anderson, a fishery biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Particularly over the past four to five years, there's been a good uptick in the California sea lions that go to Willamette Falls."

The result, warned Oregon's Department of Fish & Wildlife in a 2017 study, is a 90 percent chance some of the Columbia River's already struggling salmon populations will soon go extinct. And that's causing some Northwest legislators* to take aim at sea lions.

The irony here? Both species are protected by federal law-salmon (steelhead, chinook) by the 1973 Endangered Species Act and sea lions (California and Steller's) by the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. That means state, federal, and tribal agencies' hands are tied when it comes to lethally removing hungry sea lions from river systems-like the mid-Columbia-where historically they've never been. According to Charles Hudson of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, that's the choice we have to make: do we kill one species to save another?

We've been here before-at Seattle's Ballard Locks in the 1980s. Back then, California sea lions discovered that migrating steelhead were easy prey as they struggled to navigate the new fish ladders. Washington State tried every nonlethal deterrence technique it could dream up, from capturing and relocating the pinnipeds south (they'd be back within days) to inflatable orcas, sonar hazing, even eye-stinging solutions on the water's surface. Nothing worked; today, winter steelhead in the adjacent Salmon Bay remain functionally extinct.

As a result, in 1994 Congress enacted a provision to the Marine Mammal Protection Act allowing for the (very) limited killing of sea lions. Currently, that's up to 92 animals on the Columbia River. But an estimated 150 now congregate just around Bonneville Dam, where picking off salmon is especially easy.

New legislation pending** in the Senate would significantly raise the cap in the amended act, designating any sea lion fair game for the "taking" if found in a 34-mile stretch of the Columbia between I-205 and the dam, or on tributaries like the Willamette, Sandy, and Clackamas. (Kill methods could include lethal injection.) One bill, brought by Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and James Risch (R-ID) was awaiting a floor vote at press time; another, sponsored by Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, Oregon's two senators, is pending committee review.

"It's clear that sea lions are creating a serious threat to endangered salmon that needs to be solved as soon as possible," said Merkley in an email.

Hudson (who says CRITFC favors Risch's bill) says that if Congress can't act this session-before adjourning in mid-December, and reconvening with new faces in January-this spring's chinook will literally bear the cost.

"We know we cannot haze our way out of the problem," says Hudson, referring to the ineffective nonlethal deterrents. "There's going to have to be a lot of work done to get the salmon some relief starting in 2019. The clock is ticking."
* Editor's Note: In mid-November, the National Marine Fisheries Service (a NOAA agency) granted ODFW a special dispensation from the Marine Mammal Protection Act to lethally remove a limited number of sea lions annually from Willamette Falls. ** Editor's Note: On December 18, President Trump signed into law the Endangered Salmon Predation Act (S. 3119), greatly expanding the ability of states and tribal agencies to lethally remove sea lions from specific stretches of the Columbia River and its tributaries.

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Should Oregon Kill Sea Lions to Save the Salmon?

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Used to be, they'd show up at Willamette Falls around late November-beefy males here to bulk up and loll on the docks. Call it sea lion winter break; time off from California's Channel Islands rookeries, beaucoup steelhead to eat, zero problems. (No pups, no ladies, no predators.)

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It’s now legal to kill sea lions that are threatening salmon in the Pacific Northwest | CNN

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Animal control in the western United States just got more extreme.

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When the hungry animals started swimming 100 miles upriver to feast on salmon, humans decided that they had to be killed.

Let us first establish that sea lions are supposed to live in the sea.

Since the 1990s, however, male sea lions-a handful at first, now dozens-have been captivated by the attractions of the Willamette River. They travel all the way from Southern California to Oregon and then swim up 100 miles of river to arrive at an expansive waterfall, the largest in the region. Here, salmon returning to spawn have to make an exhausting journey up the fish ladders of the Willamette Falls. And here, the sea lions have found a veritable feast.

"They're kind of sitting ducks," the wildlife biologist Sheanna Steingass told me, describing the salmon. She paused to consider the metaphor. "Or sitting fish." Every sea lion eats three to five fish a day.

In another world, this could just be a story about the intelligence of sea lions and their adaptability to river life. But in this world-where many salmon populations in North America have plummeted, and where the winter steelhead run at Willamette Falls has fallen from 25,000 fish in the 1970s to just hundreds in 2018-it's a dire story for the fish. After spending years trying and failing to deter the sea lions by nonlethal means, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, where Steingass leads the marine-mammal program, started "lethal removal" of sea lions in December. As of mid-January, they have trapped and euthanized five sea lions at Willamette Falls.

Killing animals to save other animals is always controversial. Animal-rights groups like the Humane Society of the United States denounced the sea-lion killings, calling them a distraction from the salmon's real problems. And it's true that a long chain of human actions-overfishing, destruction of salmon habitats, dams blocking their migration, hatchery mistakes -have led to what everyone can admit is this nonoptimal situation.

"In a perfect world, in an unaltered world, this wasn't a problem, because historically there were 16 million salmon in the Columbia River," says Doug Hatch, a senior fisheries scientist at the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. The sea lion's appetites would have barely made a dent. It's only because humans have so unbalanced the natural world that as drastic an action as culling sea lions could appear to be the fix.
[Read: How climate change canceled the grizzly salmon run]
It's not the first time this has happened, though. In the 1980s, a sea lion who earned the nickname Herschel began hanging out at the entrance to the Ballard Locks in Seattle. The locks forced all fish through a narrow channel, which was great for Herschel. He would linger by this stream of food, picking off steelheads at his leisure. (Steelheads are technically a type of rainbow trout, but they are similar enough to salmon to have been grouped with them in the past.) Soon, other sea lions started joining in.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 protects sea lions from killing, capture, and harassment. But the sea lions at Ballard Locks were eating so many salmon and steelhead-whose own populations were falling-that in 1995 wildlife managers got a federal exemption to remove the three most problematic animals, Hondo, Big Frank, and Bob. (Herschel had stopped coming to the locks by then, either because he died or because he found other hunting grounds.) The three fish eaters were taken to SeaWorld, and wildlife managers deemed the problem solved.
[Read: The fantastical vision for the original SeaWorld]
In the early 2000s, sea lions started showing up en masse at the Bonneville Dam, which, like Willamette Falls, is in Oregon and more than 100 miles upriver. And as at Ballard Locks, the fish have to funnel through one of about 16 entrances to the fish ladders, making them easy pickings for sea lions. Watch the dam for just 15 minutes, says Hatch, and you might witness three to 10 fish kills.

Here too, it was just a few sea lions at first. Perhaps the first one chased a salmon upriver and-what luck!-stumbled upon a buffet. Then he returned with his buddies, and they with their buddies. One hundred to 200 sea lions now hunt at Bonneville Dam. Scientists have actually studied how this specific learned behavior spread through the male sea lions. They compared the diffusion of information through sea-lion social networks to the spread of a disease and recommended intervening early, before an outbreak becomes an epidemic.

This is why, said Steingass, it's important to address the situation at Willamette Falls quickly. If more sea lions find out about the easy hunting grounds, the fish-and-wildlife department might end up with hundreds of sea lions they have to kill, rather than the 40-odd creatures that currently hunt there. "We're going to have a better outcome for the salmon but also for the sea lions," she says. It's a justification grounded in cold, hard math, but it's also grounded in the recognition that sea lions are intelligent and social creatures.

And also persistent ones. At Willamette Falls and Bonneville Dam, the wildlife managers tried a number of ways to scare the sea lions off. They set off "seal bombs"-basically firecrackers that sink and go off underwater. They chased sea lions in a boat. Hatch says they have even trapped sea lions at Bonneville Dam and dropped them off in the ocean as far as 500 miles away. The same sea lions were back to gorging on salmon within days. "The truth is that the positive incentive to eat these fish is so great, it's very difficult to think of a negative conditioning that would be great enough," Steingass said.

In December, Congress passed a bipartisan bill that streamlines the lethal removal of sea lions. It hasn't completely gone into effect yet, but once it does, fisheries managers will no longer need to observe an individual sea lion hunting salmon five times before euthanizing it. Both state and tribal fisheries managers in the Pacific Northwest will be able to apply for the lethal-removal permits. The culling of the sea lions had been one of the most visible and controversial parts of salmon conservation, but Steingass and Hatch both said they see it as one small part of the larger effort that also includes habitat remediation and dam removals. If sea lions are gobbling up all the salmon, it negates everything else.

Sea-lion populations were once declining, too, but they have rebounded under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Such is the challenge for humans trying to manage vast, interconnected ecosystems. Put a thumb on one part of the scale, and something somewhere else goes out of whack. Try to correct that, and you create another problem. Eventually, you end up with a policy of fisheries managers killing sea lions.

The sea lions feasting on salmon had found a clever way to thrive in the human-altered world-until the rules changed and they were on the wrong side.

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controversial parts of salmon conservation

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The Feeding Frenzy That Got Sea Lions Into Deep Trouble

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When the hungry animals started swimming 100 miles upriver to feast on salmon, humans decided that they had to be killed. Let us first establish that sea lions are supposed to live in the sea. Since the 1990s, however, male sea lions-a handful at first, now dozens-have been captivated by the attractions of the Willamette River.

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Bonneville: No win for salmon or sea lions

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Sea lions are smart. Smart enough that the U.S. and Russian navies train them for military uses. And certainly, sea lions are smart enough to know that finding a convenient meal sure beats tracking down an elusive one. An inter-species standoff continues at the Bonneville Dam, which spans the wide Columbia River between Washington and Oregon.

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When the hungry animals started swimming 100 miles upriver to feast on salmon, humans decided that they had to be killed.

Let us first establish that sea lions are supposed to live in the sea.

Since the 1990s, however, male sea lions-a handful at first, now dozens-have been captivated by the attractions of the Willamette River. They travel all the way from Southern California to Oregon and then swim up 100 miles of river to arrive at an expansive waterfall, the largest in the region. Here, salmon returning to spawn have to make an exhausting journey up the fish ladders of the Willamette Falls. And here, the sea lions have found a veritable feast.

"They're kind of sitting ducks," the wildlife biologist Sheanna Steingass told me, describing the salmon. She paused to consider the metaphor. "Or sitting fish." Every sea lion eats three to five fish a day.

In another world, this could just be a story about the intelligence of sea lions and their adaptability to river life. But in this world-where many salmon populations in North America have plummeted, and where the winter steelhead run at Willamette Falls has fallen from 25,000 fish in the 1970s to just hundreds in 2018-it's a dire story for the fish. After spending years trying and failing to deter the sea lions by nonlethal means, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, where Steingass leads the marine-mammal program, started "lethal removal" of sea lions in December. As of mid-January, they have trapped and euthanized five sea lions at Willamette Falls.

Killing animals to save other animals is always controversial. Animal-rights groups like the Humane Society of the United States denounced the sea-lion killings, calling them a distraction from the salmon's real problems. And it's true that a long chain of human actions-overfishing, destruction of salmon habitats, dams blocking their migration, hatchery mistakes -have led to what everyone can admit is this nonoptimal situation.

"In a perfect world, in an unaltered world, this wasn't a problem, because historically there were 16 million salmon in the Columbia River," says Doug Hatch, a senior fisheries scientist at the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. The sea lion's appetites would have barely made a dent. It's only because humans have so unbalanced the natural world that as drastic an action as culling sea lions could appear to be the fix.
[Read: How climate change canceled the grizzly salmon run]
It's not the first time this has happened, though. In the 1980s, a sea lion who earned the nickname Herschel began hanging out at the entrance to the Ballard Locks in Seattle. The locks forced all fish through a narrow channel, which was great for Herschel. He would linger by this stream of food, picking off steelheads at his leisure. (Steelheads are technically a type of rainbow trout, but they are similar enough to salmon to have been grouped with them in the past.) Soon, other sea lions started joining in.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 protects sea lions from killing, capture, and harassment. But the sea lions at Ballard Locks were eating so many salmon and steelhead-whose own populations were falling-that in 1995 wildlife managers got a federal exemption to remove the three most problematic animals, Hondo, Big Frank, and Bob. (Herschel had stopped coming to the locks by then, either because he died or because he found other hunting grounds.) The three fish eaters were taken to SeaWorld, and wildlife managers deemed the problem solved.
[Read: The fantastical vision for the original SeaWorld]
In the early 2000s, sea lions started showing up en masse at the Bonneville Dam, which, like Willamette Falls, is in Oregon and more than 100 miles upriver. And as at Ballard Locks, the fish have to funnel through one of about 16 entrances to the fish ladders, making them easy pickings for sea lions. Watch the dam for just 15 minutes, says Hatch, and you might witness three to 10 fish kills.

Here too, it was just a few sea lions at first. Perhaps the first one chased a salmon upriver and-what luck!-stumbled upon a buffet. Then he returned with his buddies, and they with their buddies. One hundred to 200 sea lions now hunt at Bonneville Dam. Scientists have actually studied how this specific learned behavior spread through the male sea lions. They compared the diffusion of information through sea-lion social networks to the spread of a disease and recommended intervening early, before an outbreak becomes an epidemic.

This is why, said Steingass, it's important to address the situation at Willamette Falls quickly. If more sea lions find out about the easy hunting grounds, the fish-and-wildlife department might end up with hundreds of sea lions they have to kill, rather than the 40-odd creatures that currently hunt there. "We're going to have a better outcome for the salmon but also for the sea lions," she says. It's a justification grounded in cold, hard math, but it's also grounded in the recognition that sea lions are intelligent and social creatures.

And also persistent ones. At Willamette Falls and Bonneville Dam, the wildlife managers tried a number of ways to scare the sea lions off. They set off "seal bombs"-basically firecrackers that sink and go off underwater. They chased sea lions in a boat. Hatch says they have even trapped sea lions at Bonneville Dam and dropped them off in the ocean as far as 500 miles away. The same sea lions were back to gorging on salmon within days. "The truth is that the positive incentive to eat these fish is so great, it's very difficult to think of a negative conditioning that would be great enough," Steingass said.

In December, Congress passed a bipartisan bill that streamlines the lethal removal of sea lions. It hasn't completely gone into effect yet, but once it does, fisheries managers will no longer need to observe an individual sea lion hunting salmon five times before euthanizing it. Both state and tribal fisheries managers in the Pacific Northwest will be able to apply for the lethal-removal permits. The culling of the sea lions had been one of the most visible and controversial parts of salmon conservation, but Steingass and Hatch both said they see it as one small part of the larger effort that also includes habitat remediation and dam removals. If sea lions are gobbling up all the salmon, it negates everything else.

Sea-lion populations were once declining, too, but they have rebounded under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Such is the challenge for humans trying to manage vast, interconnected ecosystems. Put a thumb on one part of the scale, and something somewhere else goes out of whack. Try to correct that, and you create another problem. Eventually, you end up with a policy of fisheries managers killing sea lions.

The sea lions feasting on salmon had found a clever way to thrive in the human-altered world-until the rules changed and they were on the wrong side.

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controversial parts of salmon conservation

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The Feeding Frenzy That Got Sea Lions Into Deep Trouble

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When the hungry animals started swimming 100 miles upriver to feast on salmon, humans decided that they had to be killed. Let us first establish that sea lions are supposed to live in the sea. Since the 1990s, however, male sea lions-a handful at first, now dozens-have been captivated by the attractions of the Willamette River.

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The number of sea lions in the lower Columbia River is increasing every year, and so is predation by sea lions on salmon and steelhead. Information presented to the Council this month suggests that consumption of salmon and steelhead by marine mammals at Bonneville Dam in 2014, an estimated 4,746 fish, is higher than in any of the past three years, but lower than it was annually between 2008 and 2010. Meanwhile, predation on salmonids by marine mammals at the base of Willamette Falls on the Willamette River appears to be increasing.

The number of sea lions counted at the east mooring basin in Astoria, Oregon, a favorite resting spot for the animals, has increased dramatically over time. The numbers peak twice during the year, in the spring and fall. According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, in the spring of 2004 the peak was 206; in the spring of 2014, it was 1,420. Similarly, in the fall of 2004, the peak was 195; in the fall of 2014, it was 377.

State and tribal biologists presented research data at the Council's January meeting in Portland. Inriver surveys by the Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commission show two types of sea lions, California and Stellar, and harbor seals are in the river downstream of Bonneville Dam. Harbor seals are year-round residents in the river, and they eat fewer salmon and steelhead than sea lions.

Sea lions migrate along the West Coast from California to Alaska. Annually, those entering the Columbia in the spring, which represent only a fraction of the total West Coast population, are following smelt runs upstream. When the smelt are gone, the sea lions focus on salmon, sturgeon, and lamprey in the river before leaving in late May or early June for breeding grounds off the coast of southern California. Sea lions have been monitored at Bonneville for more than a decade, and more recently at Willamette Falls.

Robin Brown of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said it is estimated that through 2014, California sea lions killed more than 40,000 salmon, and Stellar sea lions killed more than 8,000, all near Bonneville Dam. Marine mammals are believed to have killed between 3,300 and 4,100 salmon near Willamette Falls in 2014 alone, numbers that would represent about 3 percent of the ESA-listed winter steelhead in the river and about 2 percent of the ESA-listed Chinook salmon.

Biologists noted an increase in the number of sea lions in the Columbia in the spring of 2013, and again in 2014. Brown speculated this is because of the increase in smelt.

Preliminary Research by NOAA Fisheries, which involves installing tracking devices on spring Chinook salmon in the estuary and then detecting their presence at Bonneville Dam, suggests that as much as 45 percent of the spring Chinook run is disappearing between the estuary and the dam. Accounting for other sources of mortality, Brown said the lead NOAA researcher "was very clear about saying there is a probable link to seals and sea lions." But, Brown added, "we could not take that to court. We don't have the hard and fast data" to prove the assertion. "We all know they take fish, but we really don't know how many."

While the states have legal authority under Section 120 of the Marine Mammal Protection Act to remove the most problematic marine mammals, the process is complex and requires precise identification of animals that are repeatedly observed killing ESA-listed fish. Nonetheless, 73 California sea lions have been removed from near Bonneville Dam through 2014. The state does not have authority to remove Stellars, yet.

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Sea lion numbers are increasing, and so is predation on salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River

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The number of sea lions in the lower Columbia River is increasing every year, and so is predation by sea lions on salmon and steelhead. Information presented to the Council this month suggests that consumption of salmon and steelhead by marine mammals at Bonneville Dam in 2014, an estimated 4,746 fish, is higher than in any of the past three years, but lower than it was annually between 2008 and 2010.

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There's a common perception that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's decision to allow Oregon, Washington, and Idaho to kill California sea lions at Bonneville Dam addresses the fish predation problem there. But right now, most of the damage is being done by Steller sea lions, not California sea lions. And it's sturgeon they are mostly eating, not salmon.

According to the Army Corps of Engineers' latest status report on pinniped predation at the dam, "California sea lions have remained scarce so far this year...We have documented approximately 45 different Steller sea lions visiting the dam so far and seven California sea lions."

The Steller's impact on sturgeon is a concern for fish managers worried about their toll on the population in the lower river. The fish aren't listed, but Oregon and Washington have reduced the lower river harvest in recent years because of a decline in their numbers. While the sturgeon catch is less than last year's catch at this time, at 1,189 fish it's still high. It's a difficult issue because Steller's are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, so they can't be harmed.

The total expanded salmonid catch, primarily by Stellers, through March 14 was 119 fish, much less than in the last six years. Last year at this time, the estimated salmon take was 185 and in 2010 it was 274. The Corps, which owns Bonneville, has been monitoring Steller and California sea lions since 2002 when they began arriving to feed on spawning salmon below the dam. Sturgeon also mill around that area, making the estuary an easy feeding ground for the marine mammals. The Corps is only observing sea lion take in the immediate area of the tailrace below the project, not further downstream, so it's hard to know exactly how many sturgeon or salmon are falling prey to sea lions below the dam to the river's mouth. It would take many more boats and observers to try and do so.

For now, hazing is the method of deterrence for California sea lions. They're protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which is why NOAA's authorization was required. As the season continues, their numbers and level of predation may increase, and if so, the states will be able to protect endangered salmon and steelhead by trapping and lethal means. It's a hard choice of last resort, but a necessary step to save a species that the region has made substantial investments to recover.

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California Sea Lions at Bonneville Dam Aren't the Problem

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There's a common perception that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's decision to allow Oregon, Washington, and Idaho to kill California sea lions at Bonneville Dam addresses the fish predation problem there. But right now, most of the damage is being done by Steller sea lions, not California sea lions.

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MOSES LAKE - With 55 years of experience fishing the Columbia River and tributaries around the state, as well as 31 years of experience as a fishing guide, the majority of Moses Lake resident Rick Graser's adult life has been devoted to the fishing industry in some shape or form. A longtime problem with sea lions preying on at-risk fish populations, like salmon, steelhead and sturgeon, on the Columbia River has Graser concerned, fired up and, most of all, motivated to see a legislative fix for the issue.

"I am speaking on behalf of all recreational sports fishermen," Graser said. "I am going to be their voice."

According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the California sea lion usually breeds on offshore islands in Southern California south all the way down to Mexico. Males that don't breed have been venturing north in the spring since the mid-1980s in search of prey and making their way into the Columbia River, the Willamette River and smaller tributaries before arriving at Bonneville Dam, which is nearly 150 miles from the mouth of the Columbia.

When the animals reach Bonneville Dam they encounter a true buffet of fish to feed on. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been monitoring the predation on salmon and steelhead below the dam from January through May since 2002. The number of California sea lions topped out at 195 in 2015 and hit a low of 30 in 2002, but the number of consumed fish during the 16-year time span has averaged almost 4,000 per year directly below the dam.

Estimates put the number of sea lions at around 4,500 in the Columbia River from Bonneville Dam to Astoria, Ore. The problem is that another breed of sea lion, the Steller sea lion, is staying in the Columbia River year-round and not migrating.

"Sea lions don't eat the whole fish. They mostly eat the belly of the fish where the most oily part of the salmon is, including the salmon roe," Graser explained. "Other parts of the fish are wasted."

A total of 32 wild salmon populations in the Upper Columbia River and Snake Rivers are at risk for predation by sea lions below Bonneville Dam. The population that is most at risk is the Upper Columbia River spring chinook run, which the Endangered Species Act lists as threatened and is prone to predation by sea lions that feed downriver from the Bonneville Dam. Further, the WDFW estimates the winter steelhead runs have a 90 percent chance of extinction without action on the sea lion issue. In 2000 there were an estimated 20,000 winter run steelhead that went over the Willamette Falls in Oregon, opposed to just over 500 fish counted from the 2017 return.

With hundreds of millions of dollars spent by governing agencies on salmon recovery, as well as damage done by sea lions to docks, the issue of sea lions is one that crosses boundaries and not only has an impact on fish runs, but on taxpayers as well with taxes levied for salmon recovery. Estimates put the cost to fix damage done to docks by sea lions in Astoria between $60,000-$100,000 a year, according to the Port of Astoria.

"The Columbia and Willamette rivers are being inundated with sea lions that are not native to our area and are prolific salmon-killing machines. It has been documented that up to 24 salmon have been consumed by one sea lion in one day," said state Sen. Linda Wilson, R-Vancouver. "Multiply that by the thousands of sea lions in these rivers. With the amount of funding being spent by Washington state and federally to protect our salmon, we need to do everything we can at the state level to support swift action by Congress to remedy this situation."

The problem is that although the California sea lion and the Steller sea lion, both of which have been counted below Bonneville Dam, are not listed under the ESA, they are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.

"In March 2008, fish and wildlife agencies in Washington, Oregon and Idaho received federal authorization to remove California sea lions that have been observed preying on salmon and steelhead below Bonneville Dam," states WDFW's website.

Wildlife managers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho can trap and euthanize up to 93 California sea lions per year. U.S. Rep Jaime Herrera-Beutler, R-Battle Ground, introduced a bill, H.R. 2083, in June 2017 that, if passed, would give tribal/governmental fish managers the ability to lethally remove up to 100 sea lions per permit. An identical bill, S. 1702, has been introduced in the U.S. Senate by Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho.

"The threat to endangered salmon and steelhead hasn't been considered such a high priority until this year as there is now unanimous agreement among local, state, and federal agencies as well as tribal groups that sea lions are the prime culprit for their decline. It's beyond dispute that this legislative solution is urgent to save our native fish," reads a statement from Herrera-Beutler's office.

In January, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Idaho Gov. Butch Otter sent a letter to a Northwest U.S. House delegation in which they urged the lawmakers to support Herrera-Beutler's bill. Locally, Sen. Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake, supports finding an appropriate fix.

"I am glad that this issue is coming to light because we are spending ... so much money on replenishing the salmon runs, replenishing the species and we are being negated every step of the way if those sea lions grab the salmon before they can get past the first dam," Warnick stated. "It's a matter of not only helping the salmon, but it's a matter of economics."

To Graser, who recently accompanied a group of lawmakers to Bonneville Dam to see the issue firsthand, which Warnick was a part of, time is of the utmost importance and he believes lawmakers have dropped the ball over the years with regard to the issue.

In 1999, a report prepared by the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Marine Fisheries Service was sent to Congress that detailed the problem and laid out a series of recommendations. Over the years no legislation has been passed, and people like Graser are growing restless. He is encouraging East Coast lawmakers to come out and see the problem firsthand.

"I personally invite President Donald Trump to come as well, and I'll take him fishing so he can see just how bad it is. We've tried everything. So it's to the point that between the inactivity of our legislators to stand up and address this problem in 1999 when it was first sent to Congress and now, because of their inactivity, it has forced us who are affected by the problem to get the sea lion numbers back under control," Graser said.

"This is an emergency! Not only is this an issue for salmon, but the sea lions are eating sturgeon as well, 3,000 in the Columbia River and 2,000 in the Willamette River annually."

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Wandering sea lions endangering salmon, steelhead below Bonneville Dam

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MOSES LAKE - With 55 years of experience fishing the Columbia River and tributaries around the state, as well as 31 years of experience as a fishing guide, the majority of Moses Lake resident Rick Graser's adult life has been devoted to the fishing industry in some shape or form.

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On Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2018 ODFW biologists captured the first California sea lion on the Willamette. This male has been coming to Willamette Falls to feed almost every year since 2009, including every year for the past five years.