By Toni Frohoff

Appalled by shrinking fish stocks, some U.S. fishermen—both commercial and recreational—have been casting about for something or someone to blame. Among their favorite scapegoats are seals and sea lions, who they say are eating more than their fair share of fish. Their claim has been taken seriously by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the federal agency charged with protecting the nation's marine resources. In 1999 NFMS recommended the legalized killing of seals and sea lions in its report to Congress, Impacts of California Sea lions and the Pacific Harbor Seals on Salmonids and West Coast Ecosystems. Congress has yet to act on the recommendation, which means that no state agency can act on it either, but NMFS has maintained all but the most extreme elements of its position.

The 1999 recommendation includes giving state and federal resource managers the ability to kill seals and sea lions without attempting reasonable nonlethal alternatives and without determining if the animals are actually impacting fish stocks. The Humane Society of the United States opposes the recommendation and is concerned that it represents a dangerous step toward further mismanagement of both marine mammal and fish populations.

The recommendation for lethal removal of seals and sea lions is ecologically, ethically, and scientifically indefensible and irresponsible. There are no data to support the contention that seals and sea lions are responsible for the decline of fisheries, and none to indicate that the recommendation will achieve the stated goal of enhancing depleted fish populations.

In fact, since the recommendation was issued, NMFS's own research and that of the states of Washington and Oregon have shown that seal and sea lion predation is occurring at a much lower rate than NMFS had suspected, and is not a significant factor in fish declines. Papers presented at the previous Society for Marine Mammalogy's biennial conference pointed out the same thing: Sea lions and seals are neither the proximal cause of the decline nor a significant contributor to it.

Even if seals and sea lions were responsible, it is NMFS's responsibility to examine promising and feasible nonlethal options for deterring their predation—something it has dropped the ball on repeatedly. The recommendation that NMFS made to Congress also failed to mention that federal law already includes provisions for lethal removal of pinnipeds who threaten public safety. Ironically, the recommendation itself could threaten public safety by allowing certain commercial fishers to shoot pinnipeds from their boats to protect their gear and catch. Given the shooting skills of the average commercial fisherman, who undoubtedly spends little time on a shooting range, the possibility that a stray bullet could accidentally hit a pleasure-boat passenger or an endangered Steller sea lion is very real.

NMFS also did not mention that the Marine Mammal Protection Act already provides for lethal removal of individually identifiable seals and sea lions who are having a significant adverse impact on the decline or recovery of salmonid stocks. NMFS's 1999 recommendation only serves to expand these provisions to allow for the indiscriminate and inhumane killing of these animals without addressing the real sources of fish declines, such as hatchery fish competition, habitat degradation, open ocean driftnet fishing, and fish passage problems caused by poor construction of fishways and dams.

NMFS's preoccupation with lethal removal of seals and sea lions has caused more harm to depleted fish stocks than any number of marine mammals could ever do. By diverting precious resources and time away from the true causes of the fish declines, NMFS has only exacerbated the real problem—human mismanagement of natural resources and fish populations.

As a statement from the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association noted, "It's not fishing, Canadians or sea lions, all of which the National Marine Fisheries Service and other federal agencies have sought to blame for the fish losses. It is true that sea lion predation of salmon has increased at river mouths. But shooting them is not the answer for lost flows and habitat." Nor, frankly, is it the answer to demonstrable overfishing.

NMFS has selected an easy target to divert attention from the actual causes of fish declines, and in the process has misled the public about the valuable role of marine mammals in the ecosystem. The HSUS agrees with Hilda Diaz-Soltero, formerly of NMFS, who stated in a letter to the president of the California Fish and Game Commission on May 5, 1995, "I believe that sea lion predation on salmonids is currently serving as a scapegoat for the harm that has been rendered to anadromous fish habitat."

Toni Frohoff, Ph.D., is a wildlife biologist who represents The Humane Society of the United States on marine mammal issues.