Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Monday 26 March 2018
Species battle pits protected sea lions against fragile fish

By GILLIAN FLACCUS River Intertribal Fish Com-
Associated Press mission.
NEWPORT, Ore. (AP) — The "You're pitting this pro-
700-pound sea lion blinked tected population that
in the sun, sniffed the sea has been fully recovered
air and then lazily shifted against these Endangered
to the edge of the truck Species Act-listed fish,"
bed and plopped onto the Hatch said. "We think it's an
beach below. easy choice."
Freed from the cage that If U.S. officials grant the
carried him to the ocean, request, the trap-and-kill
the massive marine mam- program would expand a
mal shuffled into the surf, similar and highly contro-
looked left, looked right versial effort on another
and then started swimming major Pacific Northwest
north as a collective groan river. Oregon and Washing-
went up from wildlife of- ton wildlife managers are
ficials who watched from allowed to kill up to 93 sea
the shore. lions trapped each year at
After two days spent trap- Bonneville Dam on the Co-
ping and relocating the lumbia River under certain
animal designated #U253, conditions.
he was headed back to In the past decade, the
where he started — an Or- agency has removed 190
egon river 130 miles (209 sea lions there. Of those,
kilometers) from the Pacific 168 were euthanized, sev-
Ocean that has become In this April 24, 2008 file photo, a sea lion eats a salmon in the Columbia River near Bonneville en died in accidents dur-
an all-you-can-eat fish buf- Dam in North Bonneville, Wash. ing trapping and 15 were
fet for hungry sea lions. Associated Press placed in captivity, ac-
"I think he's saying, 'Ah, cording to state data.
crap! I've got to swim all bers dropped dramatically Less than 30 years ago, that mammals also have been The Humane Society of the
the way back?'" said Bryan but have rebounded from number was more than spotted in small rivers in United States sued over
Wright, an Oregon Depart- 30,000 in the late 1960s to 15,000, according to state Washington state that are the trap-and-kill program
ment of Fish and Wildlife about 300,000 today due numbers. home to fragile fish popula- and may sue again if it's
scientist. to the 1972 Marine Mam- "We're estimating that tions. allowed on the Willamette
It's a frustrating dance be- mal Protection Act. there's a 90 percent prob- California sea lions are not River, said Sharon Young,
tween California sea lions With their numbers growing, ability that one of the pop- listed under the Endan- the organization's field di-
and Oregon wildlife man- the dog-faced pinnipeds ulations in the Willamette gered Species Act, but kill- rector for marine wildlife.
agers that's become all too are venturing ever farther River could go extinct if ing them requires special The animals are not the
familiar in recent months. inland on the watery high- sea lion predation contin- authorization under the only problem facing wild
The state is trying to evict ways of the Columbia River ues unchecked," he said. Marine Mammal Protection winter steelhead and chi-
dozens of the federally pro- and its tributaries in Oregon "Of all the adults that are Act, which was changed nook salmon, she said.
tected animals from an in- and Washington — and returning to the falls here, a to address the issue of fish Hydroelectric dams that
land river where they feast their appetite is having di- quarter of them are getting predation. block rivers, agricultural
on salmon and steelhead sastrous consequences, eaten." Biologists this spring started runoff, damage to spawn-
that are listed under the En- scientists say. Clements estimates the sea trapping the sea lions in the ing grounds and competi-
dangered Species Act. In Oregon, the sea lions lions also are eating about Willamette River and releas- tion with hatchery-bred fish
The bizarre survival war are intercepting protected 9 percent of the spring chi- ing them at the coast. They have all hurt the native spe-
has intensified recently as fish on their way to spawn- nook salmon, a species also have applied with the cies, Young said. And new
the sea lion population re- ing grounds above Willa- prized by Native American federal government to kill sea lions will take the place
bounds and fish popula- mette Falls, a horseshoe- tribes still allowed to fish for the worst offenders to pro- of those that are killed, she
tions decline in the Pacific shaped waterfall about 25 them. tect the fish runs. added. "It's easier to say, 'If
Northwest. miles (40 kilometers) south Oregon wildlife managers Native tribes, which have I kill that sea lion, at least I
The sea lions breed each of Portland. Last winter, a say sea lions are begin- fished for salmon and steel- keep him from eating that
summer off Southern Cali- record-low 512 wild winter ning to move into even head for generations, sup- fish.' But if you don't deal
fornia and northern Mexi- steelhead completed the smaller tributaries where port limited sea lion kills with the cause of the prob-
co, then the males cruise journey, said Shaun Cle- they had never been seen because of the cultural lem, you're not going to
up the Pacific Coast to for- ments, the state wildlife before and where some of value of the fish, said Doug help the fish," she said. "It's
age. Hunted for their thick agency's senior policy ad- the healthiest stocks of the Hatch, a senior fisheries sci- like a treadmill of death.
fur, the mammals' num- viser. threatened fish exist. The entist with the Columbia You kill one, and another
one will come."
While Oregon awaits word
on the sea lions' fate, wild-
life managers are trapping
them and hauling them
to the ocean, which can
sometimes seem futile.
Five days after his 2 ½-hour
drive to the Oregon coast,
#U253 was back at Willa-
mette Falls, hungry for more
fish.q