85 Sea lions can now be killed in the Columbia at Bonneville. I'm surprised no one has made a post about this yet.

wow! surprised I hadnt heard about this yet

Been mentioned twice in the past week, might check page 2 and 3.

There's a post or two up about it already...

Fish on...

Todd

Guess the trapping and killing has already started.

Should have started Saturday morning but apparently (WDFW) Phil Anderson put a halt to it. ????? Rumors that ODFW were a little peaved at him for it.

Good news.

Wouldn't surprise me that it's stopped already. But this is a big problem, smelt is listed, sturgeon is on it's way and 30% of the salmon crossing Bonneville show signs of encounters with predators.

Go get'em.Dam fur bag's are up @ wind river troll fishery get'in all fat in chit.Good luck,
SZ

Word has it that the killin ain't goin so well. The Sea Lions are moving out headed south making trapping tough. The courts waited to long to side, a couple days of delay by the WDFW did not help.

All the docks in the lower river are full of the sea-pigs.

As you propably are aware not every one of them is on the hit list. While many may be on the docks they need specific animals to be on the traps and the thinning of the herd do to their migration isn't helpin matters....A day late a dollar short.

Yes I'm aware of the short list, the Sealions have gained a few months which is all the humane society needs to get it back into court. I'm also hearing rumors of a 12% + impact now for predation, much higher that the 2-4% NMFS was using.

The pack moved to Neah, getting hand fed halibut carcasses and getting fat and ready to feed in your neck of the woods.....

Git em

Did you guys read Jim Branch's article in the Reel News entitled "Simple Sea Lion Solution"? I'm not so sure about the solution (get them off the esl and let natives have 50 percent of them) but the numbers quoted were interesting. Seems like it all came down to us deciding a while ago to protect animals that have decreased in number because they have lost a significant percentage of their food source, instead of working on helping the food source to recover. I'm thinking people are confusing cause and effect. Maybe Increase the food source and the predator numbers will come up naturally? Maybe all the effort on protecting the sea lion and orcas should be going to re establishing salmon numbers. total newbie here so just 2 cents.

Are you proposing a decrease in the number of salmon as a way to decrease sea lion populations ? I suppose the sea lions might go away when they run out of salmon and sturgeon...brilliant ?

No I'm not saying that. I'm saying people seem to be treating the massive decline in the salmon populations and the decline in predators that rely on the salmon as food as mutually exclusive events. NOAA (I dont hate NOAA but they seem to have their head up their ass now and again) is quick to site the decline of the Chinook salmon runs as a leading cause in the lack of orca whales, but their solution to the low orca numbers is to protect the whales from boat traffic instead of working to stop indiscriminate net fishing in the same area? They want to close the west side of San Juan to people but allow commercial fishing durign that period? This shows to me that they dont understand cause and effect. Why wouldnt we all work on protecting and increasing salmon numbers (it appears we all have a good idea of what salmon need in order to thrive now) and letting mother nature balance the predators populations?

Like I said, Im a newbie so I dont want to get on a soapbox about things I cant back up with clear understanding, but you simply misunderstood me.

I think the problem, like most always, is that management schemes look at every species, or even portions of ecosystems, in a vacuum.

Orcas eat sea lions, but only some of them. Orcas and sea lions both eat salmon, but one eats them in the ocean, while many of the others pile up at the dam and eat them. Wild fish runs are down, but hatchery plants are thru the roof, which is what brings the sea lions to the dams. Orcas eat hatchery fish, too.

Which ones do we kill first to save all the rest?

Do we ignore the effect of dams on the fish runs, and just look at "who eats who?"...or other habitat or water concerns?

What about other things that affect Orcas, besides just their food supply?

Kill all the damn birds!! Why are the birds there?

We seem to always be in a hurry to find a scapegoat out there "somewhere else" that's screwing things up, instead of noting the obvious...every problem that every species has is caused by us, either directly or indirectly, and usually our "management scheme" to fix the problem addresses symptoms that are far down the line from the actual problem.

Fish on...

Todd

Sealions and Wolves would be a better comparison, both were hunted down because of their impacts directly competed with man. Now they are protected and multiplying with little thought given to the food source, so now what?