Well, as is all too common with us "Human" animals anymore, there is no common sense rule for anything....
Seals have their place in this world, as do all animals. But unfortunately we do not manage them. Their only natural enemy anymore is the Great Whites and Orcas. We have, in trying to save them, inadvertantly created a species whose population is exploding. The PETA crowd has made it where they cannot even be controlled when all other options have failed. Remember the Ballard locks incident, when the F&W guys could not even shoot them with rubber tipped arrows to discourage them from eating the last few wild Steelhead returning to Lake Washington? That is so rediculous, but try to convince the PETA people otherwise.
A seal (or Sealion) has no business being that far up the Columbia, and I have seen many of them in the last ten years up at Bonneville.
As with the Ballard locks seals, if they find an easy meal (like fish ladders), they will stay indefinetely...... I do not condone the breaking of the law, but something has to be done to control their numbers.
After years of watching the seagulls feast on smolts at McNary dam, I could not believe it when I was fishing and heard what I thought were M80's going off and saw the Gulls dropping from the sky. Seems ODFW was blasting them with a 12 ga.... Must have seen over 200-300 or them floating down the river that afternoon. Called them up to find out what was up, and they said that they had tried everything and the gulls were used to all the scare tactics and they had no choice if they wanted to save the smolts. I think the same approach needs to be implemented with the seals..... Don't wipe them out, but control their numbers....

MC