California Sea Lions Next Target

sea lions at Astoria, OR; credit: L.Topinka

Federal agents have already started killing cormorants on Sand Island in a misguided effort to save endangered salmon, the highly prized prey of humans. {25.06.15} It will not be long before they turn their attention again to California sea lions that have returned to the northwest coast in greater numbers than before. US Person wrote about sea lions preying on salmon at the base of Bonneville Dam. A federal court allowed a limited translocation and euthanasia of the protected pinniped to take place {07.04.07;24.04.08} So far 85 sea lions have been killed and another 15 sent to captivity. Due to legal protection under the Marine Mammal Act, the west coast sea lion population has increased dramatically to about 300,000, and because food sources elsewhere are depleted they are congregating at the first barrier across the Columbia River where hunting salmon is easy. Humans are scratching their heads when it comes to conflicts between protected species. They do not have to think to deeply to know that the erratic population spikes between prey and predator are symptomatic of a degraded ecosystem that is out of balance because of man's interference.

Scientists say the collapse of the Southern California sardine fishery and a large area of warm ocean water, nicknamed "the Blob", has driven more sea lions than the habitual males north in search of food. They found it in the Columbia. This year biologists counted 2400 male sea lions at Astoria near the river's mouth, 1,000 more than last year. A smelt boom kept them fed through February and they lingered for the spring Chinook run. One investigation by a NOAA fisheries biologists suggests that sea lions eat as many as 25% of the salmon migrating up the Columbia to the Bonnneville barrier. Other scientists say they eat one in 25 salmon. Either way the evidence is circumstantial and there are plenty of reasons for declining salmon numbers beside hungry sea lions. Salmon must swim through polluted water in brownfields. Invasive fish species like bass and walleye feed on juvenile salmon and human predation is intense; native tribes have a recognized stake in salmon harvesting for human consumption.

There lies the rub. The US government spends $500 million a year to increase salmon spawning. Fishermen--commercial, sport and native-- are complaining constantly about the competition from sea lions. Conservationists say more killing is not the answer. It is much harder and more costly to restore a riverine system than kill a few sea lions or comorants. So far native tribes have resorted to only hazing offending sea lions, but they want more authority to kill "problem" sea lions say spokespersons standing amid the roar of the biggest salmon killer of all: Bonneville Dam. Fundamentally, this is a philosophical debate: either wildlife as sentient beings have a moral right to existence or they are only a resource to be exploited by man.