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Sea
lions show salmon what endangered really is
 |
| I |
By John Ritter, USA
TODAY
BONNEVILLE,
Whether
his rubber bullet hits the 500-pound pinniped and scares it away from a
juicy buffet of chinook salmon can't be readily determined. Biologists
are skeptical.
"Some
of them barely feel it," says Robert Stansell, a fisheries
biologist with the Army Corps of Engineers. "When you hit them
point-blank, they'll just turn around and look like a mosquito bit
them."
Hazers,
as the shooters are called, from the corps and wildlife agencies in
In
greater numbers every year, sea lions swim more than 100 miles up the
Columbia from its mouth at the Pacific Ocean to Bonneville as endangered
salmon congregate in April and May on their way upriver to spawn. Last
year, biologists identified at least 80 sea lions at the dam.
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| Columbia
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| Bonneville
"They've
definitely been coming earlier every year, leaving later, staying
longer," Stansell says.
It's
a rare instance of one protected species, sea lions under the Marine
Mammal Protection Act, preying on another protected species, chinook
salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Chinook
salmon are the losers. Their numbers have been declining for years
because of commercial and sport fishing, loss of habitat and the
difficulty of negotiating dams on the
Sea
lions, reduced to about 50,000 when Congress passed the protection act
in 1972, have flourished: More than 300,000 now roam the Pacific coast.
Last
year, biologists estimated that the wily pinnipeds took an estimated 3%
to 4% of the
"Everybody
is doing a lot of things to try to allow these fish to recover,"
says Robin Brown, a marine mammal researcher with the Oregon Fish and
Wildlife Department. "But all of a sudden, we have a whole new
source of mortality that shows no sign of stopping."
From
500 to 1,000 sea lions prowl
This
year, the department installed a floating barge near the dam to lure sea
lions to rest — or "haul out" — on it. When they do, a net
drops and traps them for transport downriver to
Last
month,
In
the late 1990s,
Members
of Congress from Washington and Oregon are sponsoring a bill to amend
the protection act to allow the killing of problem sea lions, but it's
not likely to pass in time to stop this year's banquet, says Rep. Brian
Baird, D-Wash. "Sea lions are smart enough to realize if it becomes
a lethal risk, they're going to have to go somewhere else or change
their strategy," Baird says.
The
Oregon Humane Society won't oppose killing Bonneville sea lions if the
states show that other measures have failed, Executive Director Sharon
Harmon says. "I recognize the political reality," she says.
"We could end up with no salmon while we discuss the issue to
death."
Four
Indian tribes on the lower Columbia that have strong cultural
connections to chinook salmon are "outraged" that sea lions
are eating their sacred fish, says Charles Hudson, spokesman for the
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. Salmon are "highly
prized for ceremonial functions, including funerals, weddings and other
celebrations," he says.
Salmon
usually can evade sea lions in the open ocean, Brown says. Once in the
river, the fish tend to hug the shoreline and are somewhat more
vulnerable, but as they mill around below the bottleneck of a dam,
sometimes for days or weeks before entering a fish ladder, they're a
virtual sushi bar for sea lions. Even a 30-pound salmon is no match for
a sea lion.
One
particularly aggressive sea lion, dubbed C404, became something of a
celebrity last year. Nothing hazers tried persuaded him — practically
all marauding sea lions here are males — to leave. C404 pioneered a
tricky jump maneuver that got him inside a fish ladder, where the
pickings were easy.
That
prompted officials to install heavy bars in front of most of the gates
leading to ladders. Even so, C404 was spotted this year early in the
salmon run, trying to figure out how to get back inside.
When
a handful of sea lions first came to Bonneville about five years ago,
they'd eat salmon for a while, then go back downriver to
As
more sea lions went upriver each year and as they became more
comfortable around the dam, they began hauling out on nearby shores and
concrete structures instead of returning to the coast.
Data
from last year, when sea lions were harassed only intermittently,
indicate that more salmon were eaten during hazing than when the animals
were left alone, Stansell says. He thinks that could be because when the
sea lions are resting, they're not chasing salmon.
This
year, hazers in boats, helped by spotters on the riverbanks and atop the
walls of the dam's power stations and spillway, will patrol daily from
dawn to dusk.
Sea
lions are smart and adaptive, and with stepped-up hazing their behavior
has changed. "They stay underwater a lot longer," Stansell
says. "They're not showing themselves as much.
"The
ones that already know there's a feast here, they're tough to drive
off."
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Source:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-16-sealions_N.htm