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| Bethanie O'Driscoll |
| The government is targeting sea lions at Bonneville Dam. |
The Humane Society of the United States, Wild Fish Conservancy, and two individual citizens filed suit today in federal court in Oregon, seeking to stop the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) from authorizing the killing of as many as 425 sea lions at Bonneville Dam over the next five years. NMFS concluded that sea lions must be killed to prevent them from consuming an average of 0.4 to 4.2 percent of salmon and steelhead returns this year, even though both Oregon and Washington state recently proposed to increase fishing quotas by 33 percent (from 9 to 12 percent of the run) in light of expected record Chinook salmon returns for 2008.
"Federal law only allows the killing of sea lions when the agency proves they are having a significant negative impact on salmon," said Jonathan R. Lovvorn, vice president for animal protection litigation for The HSUS. "The National Marine Fisheries Service's decision to kill hundreds of native marine mammals to reduce salmon losses by a couple of percentage points, while simultaneously increasing harvest quotas for fishermen, is both outrageous and patently illegal."
Although the States will begin with the trapping and removal of about a dozen animals, the plan also calls for hundreds of animals to be shot over the next several years. The government's own environmental analysis states that they will be unlikely to trap more than 15 animals each year, and will quickly have to resort to killing animals in order to reach their goal of reducing sea lion taking from 4 percent to 1 percent of the run—meaning that the same number of fish that will be "saved" by killing sea lions will be killed in the increased fishing quota in 2008.
"Blaming sea lions is nothing but a distraction," said Kurt Beardslee, Executive Director of Wild Fish Conservancy. "The National Marine Fisheries Service needs to look objectively at dam operation and over-harvest, which together kill significantly more salmon and prevent them from reaching high-quality spawning habitat."
FACTS:
While birds, other fish, sea lions, and fishermen all kill salmon, the primary threats are from loss of quality spawning habitat and dams blocking their normal migratory routes up and down river.
The major causes of salmon losses are:
- Dams: NMFS estimates the Federal Columbia River Power System kills 16.8 percent of adult Snake River Basin Steelhead and 59.9 percent of juveniles.
- Fishing: NMFS authorizes the incidental take of between 5.5 and 17 percent of the Upper Columbia spring Chinook and Upper Snake River spring/summer Chinook.
- Birds: NMFS estimated that avian predators consumed 18 percent of juvenile salmonids reaching the Columbia River estuary in 1998.
- Research: In 2003, NMFS authorized a research permit to take 4.8 percent of listed sockeye.
The plan to shoot sea lions coincides with estimates that this spring's Columbia River salmon run is likely to be the third largest in almost 30 years, and a likely 200 percent increase in total fish over 2007.
