cohoangler,

I realize that the sea lions may not be in the abundance they were before the salmon population was greatly reduced. Since you made the statement about the current population of the sea lions as not being "over polulated" what are you basing that on?

If the fishery can't sustain the mulitple pressures placed on it, why would it be wrong to reduce their numbers. The tone of your post seemed to be one of trying to straighten us red-neck reactionary fishermen out.

Personally, the seal lions can go. I spoke with Joe Hymer today from region five and he told me that the reason they have increased is the obvious, the runs have been good and the lions enjoy great success for the reasons that you also mention.

By the way, he did not rule out closing the lower columbia if the forecast was off. FYI, the commercial have taken 80 percent of their allotment based on the large run forecast.