Court upholds killing sea lions to save salmon

[denali]

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — An appeals court has upheld killing sea lions that eat too many salmon at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had told NOAA Fisheries Service it needed to do a better job of explaining why it was authorizing the killing of dozens of sea lions, which are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. And on Friday the court affirmed that the latest explanation filled the bill.

The court said the service examined the relevant data, and explained the rationale behind killing up to 92 sea lions a year to reduce the loss of threatened and endangered salmon.

The Humane Society of the United States had challenged the killing, arguing that fishing and the dams kill far more salmon than sea lions.


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[sivart33]

I agree they are an abundance of them, but seals are more the problem then sea lions (besides the dam/netting). I hope its a hunting tag, not wasted.   

[j_h_nimrod]

There are an over abundance of these voracious predators. The more killed the better in my opinion, this is especially true around Bonneville dam where salmon are concentrated and bottle necked where these very efficient predators can kill many salmon with ease. In other places I have seen a group of sea lions run through a school of salmon and wound/kill 1-2 for every one consumed.

I would disagree that seals are worse, I have been around both extensively and the sea lions kill and wound many more per capita than seals in my experience. Seals certainly take their bite but they certainly seemed to have much less impact than the lions. This is just my observation and I do not have any research to back it up but seals certainly had less of an impact than the lions on adult salmon in the areas I was in.

Sea lions are essentially worthless but are treated as if they were a valuable natural resource and worth saving and returning to historic numbers when land use and fisheries management have to evolve to the changed the ecosystem to the point where we are spending millions to feed this non-contributing species.

 Sea lions on welfare?

[HairTrigger]

Sounds good to me maybe I'll get some seal skin  boots sooner than I thought lol