Well Larry, there is another Fed law that protects these animals-MMPA, so I suppose that is the response for the Hershel debacle. Steelhead weren't ESA-listed until 2007.

As far as the de-listing of the Eastern DPS of Stellers, the DPSs were split out in 1997 and the Eastern DPS maintained its status as threatened until proposed for de-listing in 2012. That's....hold on...15 years, a long time if it was only that they were "mistakenly" grouped at the time of listing in 1990.

https://www.federalregister.gov/document...ment-of-steller

I'm certainly not a disagreeing that the significant increase in pinnipeds and their effect on salmon is not an issue. What I don't necessarily agree with is that, since we have identified the current "enemy" (which is conveniently not US), mostly and recently based on one research paper's modeling efforts, btw, we can immediately jump into action and start blasting holes in these guys like it's the 1930s-60s.