Three states want to kill sea lions

PORTLAND – The federal government will consider a petition by three states to remove or kill troublesome sea lions in order to protect endangered salmon and steelhead headed upriver through Bonneville Dam to Columbia and Snake river spawning grounds.

The action applies to fish protected by the federal Endangered Species Act, which includes about a dozen Columbia and Snake river fish populations, Brian Gorman, spokesman for the NOAA Fisheries Service, said Tuesday.

A decision on whether to remove or kill the sea lions, he said, likely will be a year or more away.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act, established in 1972, protects California sea lions and many other species, although the sea lions are far from endangered.

Accepting the application starts a process that will set up a task force and request public comment on the petition from Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

Fishermen contend the sea lions, who gather at the base of the dam as salmon head upriver, eat too many of the fish and reduce the available catch.

Authorities have tried huge firecrackers, rubber bullets, underwater broadcasts of loud sounds and other remedies, to little avail.

Opponents of killing the animals say the sea lions are only a small part of larger problems that include the dams themselves, agricultural runoff, industrial pollution, and destruction of spawning areas and other habitat.

“We will be submitting comments on it, and we very much hope to be a part of the task force making the decision,” said Marine Issues Field Director Sharon Young of the Humane Society of the United States from Sagamore Beach, Mass.

“The information we have is that they eat only 3 to 4 percent of the run,” she said.

She said an estimated 40 percent of the Canadian catch is made up of species listed as endangered in the United States.

“We need to address a multitude of problems,” she said.

Gorman said about a dozen salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia and Snake rivers are considered endangered.

He said a decision to allow killing or other removal “is a slow and deliberate process by design.”