Salmon get Seal (of) Approval

Holy pinnipeds batman, the spring-run Chinook season is upon us. Grab the traps and nets and dynamite and let the annual battle with the California sea lions, aka pinnipeds, begin.

Sam and I don’t care if sea lions poach the salmon because we don’t like to eat salmon. One Native American friend looked at me like I had lost all my marbles when I told him that. But forget your Omega 3; chocolate donuts keep Sam and me healthy. Why can’t the sea lions do what comes natural to them without being hassled for it anyway? On the other hand, if hassling is a way to stop those darned Californicators from moving here well . . . still, it doesn’t seem fair to kill sea lions just because they have a taste for fish.

 According to the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife’s The Weekender Report, Starting April 8, Columbia River anglers were to get at least eight more days to catch hatchery-reared spring chinook salmon below Bonneville Dam. The Weekender Report says in April, the daily number of spring chinook passing Bonneville Dam usually jumps from hundreds to thousands. Some experts predict the largest spring chinook run since 1938, perhaps as many as 470,000 fish, compared to 169,300 in 2009.

Wildlife officials have tried everything the last few years to keep sea lions from eating endangered salmon, dropping bombs that explode under water, firing rubber bullets and bean bags from shotguns and boats, even shooting them up with lethal injections – as in death row injections. You may recall stories of Herschel who preyed on salmon at Seattle’s Ballard Locks and drove fishermen and fish and wildlife people crazy. Herschel apparently just swam off into the sunset and died on his own. But according to a story in The Olympian, 30 sea lions have been euthanized since 2008. Now the commercial and sport fishermen and some Native American tribes are whining to Congress to shoot loopholes in the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, to allow way more sea lions to be killed.
Okay, the number of sea lions migrating north for fishing season has soared in recent years. But that’s not surprising considering the migration north of other Californians. Personally, I think when Arnold Schwerznegger says “I’ll be back,” he ain’t talking about returning to California either. Story continues below
The sea lions that hang out at Bonneville can reach more than 600 pounds and eight feet in length. But even though they ate an estimated 5,000 salmon last year, they are not singling out salmon for supper. They’ll eat about anything that swims in front of them. Commercial and sport fishermen, who catch three times as many salmon and have nearly annihilated salmon runs in many areas, are greedy and just don’t want to share.
One California sea lion named Rocky reportedly was taught a simple language of six verbs, five adjectives and 11 objects and could comprehend about 7,000 different sentences using those words. Sam and I wonder if Rocky knows how to say, “three bags of poop on greedy fishermen.”

The Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife can be reached at  (Fish) 360-902-2700,  (Wildlife) 360-902-2515