Twenty years ago, Herschel and his pals nearly wiped out the steelhead runs at Seattle's Ballard Locks. The chunky California sea lions killed two-thirds of the winter steelhead at the waterway linking Puget Sound with Lake Union and Lake Washington. Even today, that run has not fully recovered.

Sea lions are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. When Sen. Warren G. Magnuson authored the law, Herschel and his hungry friends were few in numbers. But since the federal law passed, seal and sea lion populations have exploded. For example, the Washington Fish and Game Department estimated that the California sea lion population on the West Coast grew from 10,000 in 1950 to over 300,000 by 2005.

Section 120 of the Act does allow taking sea lions by lethal force on an individual basis if they threaten endangered fish runs. However, by the time authorities had permission to remove five animals near the locks, 12 years had passed and Herschel was long... Continued@URL...
http://www.columbian.com/business/busine...ng-for-fish.cfm

With all the rubber bullets they threw at him, someone should have slipped in a full metal jacket. Opps.... my bad

They should have nipped it in the bud right from the start. Outta sight... outta mind!!!
Didn't they capture him, and take him out to the coast or something too only to have him come right back?

They took him to California and he was back in 10 days or so.

Besides it was the wall to wall nets that destroyed the runs. The sea lions moved in after the nets were out and got the blame.

Yeah sure all the nets in the Cedar kiled all those March fish.

Net's down both sides of the locks for decades.