Tests suggest Columbia River sea lions weren’t shot

PORTLAND – Federal officials did an about-face Wednesday in an investigation of the deaths of six sea lions at Bonneville Dam, saying their initial assumption that the animals had been shot to death was wrong.

The conclusion, based on the preliminary results of necropsies, reopened questions of how the animals died and whether humans killed them.

The service’s initial reports about the deaths raised intense interest in the long-running dispute over the sea lions, which prey on protected salmon, and as a consequence, the government and the Humane Society of the United States made an agreement to suspend trapping and removing the sea lions this year.

But the preliminary results of the examination of the carcasses found no evidence of recent gunshot wounds, spokesman Brian Gorman of the National Marine Fisheries Service said Wednesday.

Gorman said the necropsy results showed numerous shallow puncture wounds in one animal consistent with sea lion bite marks, and X-rays found metal fragments in soft tissue near the necks of two animals.

A metal slug was found in the blubber of one animal.

But, he said, neither the fragments nor the slug appear to be fatal and may have been from old wounds.

Mark Oswell, a wildlife enforcement officer for the service in Silver Spring, Md., said Wednesday that human involvement cannot be ruled out and said dehydration, heat exhaustion or panic could have been factors. He said it still is not known what caused the doors of the cage traps to close, trapping the animals.

Oswell said toxicology tests will be done if further investigations warrant it and that tissue samples have been taken.

He said the sea lions have been taken to the federal fish and wildlife forensics laboratory in Ashland, where officials declined to comment.

The service reported Sunday the animals had apparently been shot and said later that investigators were pursuing theories that somebody in a boat had gone to the traps and used a high-powered rifle to dispatch the sea lions, the bullets passing through the flesh.

A spokesman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Rick Hargrave, said Monday that the sea lion cages were checked on Saturday about 7 p.m. and again at noon on Sunday, when a student intern reported that the drop-down cage doors were closed.

On Wednesday, a Humane Society official blamed “an obvious security lapse” in the trap area, which was closed to the public.

“Those animals did not close the gates by themselves and die,” said Sharon Young, the organization’s field director for marine issues. “Somebody had a hand in killing them. What that person did, nobody knows.”