READ THIS ARTICLE ON SEA LIONS DESTROYING OUR STEELIES AND OTHER FISH: (ARTICLE PUBLISHED JUST FOUR DAYS AGO ON 02.19.08)
http://columbian.com/business/businessN ... r-fish.cfm
Another article on if they are native or not, and other pertinent information concerning this serious problem:
http://www.dfw.state.or.us/fish/SeaLion/faqs.asp
Another good read just published this Month on the 15th in the Seattle Times:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/o ... ons15.html
FROM THE FIRST ARTICLE:
"The chunky California sea lions killed two-thirds of the winter steelhead at the waterway linking Puget Sound with Lake Union and Lake Washington. Even today, that run has not fully recovered.
Sea lions are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. When Sen. Warren G. Magnuson authored the law, Herschel and his hungry friends were few in numbers. But since the federal law passed, seal and sea lion populations have exploded. For example, the Washington Fish and Game Department estimated that the California sea lion population on the West Coast grew from 10,000 in 1950 to over 300,000 by 2005.
Sea lions are smart. They nearly drove fish and game officials crazy. The experts tried just about everything to scare hefty predators away from the Ballard Locks and even came up with "Fake Willy," a 16-foot fiberglass killer whale. All that happened is the paint got scratched up and the sea lions swam right by the bogus Orca to feast on the incoming runs.
Scientists even captured the biggest offenders and trucked them to California, but Herschel and his buddies nearly beat the trucks back to Seattle and continued to "chow away."
The run of 2,500 steelhead had collapsed to as few as 70 fish. Other sea lions didn't take their place, but it wasn't because they feared capture, underwater noise-makers, or a fake whale. No food, no sea lions.
In fact each year the sea lion population increases by five percent, and the animals are arriving earlier each year and staying longer.
NOAA Fisheries Services, at the urging of fishermen and Columbia River tribes, wants permission to kill up to 30 sea lions before the runs are wiped out. So unless Sea World or someone else steps forward, either some troublemaker sea lions will have to go or the fish runs will end up like the winter steelhead run at the Ballard Locks.
History repeating itself..."
Something has to be done.
"In 1988 and 1989, resource managers captured a total of 39 California sea lions that had been foraging at the Ballard Locks and transported them to the outer Washington coast near Long Beach where they were released. Within a few weeks of the time they were released, 29 of those animals returned to the Locks to resume preying on salmon and steelhead in Shilshole Bay."
