A peculiar war is being waged on the Columbia River as tribes seek to keep sea lions from decimating salmon runs, and the sea mammals refuse to give up the all-you-can-eat buffet.
A peculiar war is being waged on the Columbia River as tribes seek to keep sea lions from decimating salmon runs, and the sea mammals refuse to give up the all-you-can-eat buffet. Three days a week, Bobby Begay and his two-man crew — Reggie Sergeant and Ted Walsey Jr. — from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission board a boat at the North Bonneville dock to mount an offensive against predatory sea lions.
The 700-pound sea lion blinked in the sun, sniffed the sea air and then lazily shifted to the edge of the truck bed and plopped onto the beach below.
NEWPORT — The 700-pound sea lion blinked in the sun, sniffed the sea air and then lazily shifted to the edge of the truck bed and plopped onto the beach below. Freed from the cage that carried him to the ocean, the massive marine mammal shuffled into the surf, looked left, looked right and then began swimming north as a collective groan went up from wildlife officials who watched from the shore. After two days spent trapping and relocating the animal designated #U253, he was headed back to where he started — an Oregon river 130 miles from the Pacific Ocean that's become an all-you-can-eat fish buffet for hungry sea lions.
SPOKANE, Wash. — Some Northwest Indian tribes would be allowed to kill a limited number of sea lions that prey on endangered salmon in the Columbia River under a bill introduced in Congress.
California and Steller sea lions that have in recent years congregated in springtime below the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam to prey on passing salmon and steelhead, as well as white sturgeon and other fish species, have for the most part moved on to other business, according to U.S. Army Corp of Engineers researchers studying pinniped impacts on protected fish stocks.
Trapping led by the states of Oregon and Washington below the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam continued this week with seven California sea lions captured Tuesday, April 22.
A total of six California sea lions known to frequent the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam in the past and feast on spring chinook salmon were trapped this week and euthanized as a part of a state plan to reduce predation on fish stocks that are protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Lookout… here they come. Biologists counted about 1,420 California sea lions Monday nestled at docks at the East Mooring Basin in Astoria, which is double the 739 peak counted last year – which was a record high number over the course of long-running monitoring of pinniped presence.
