April 12, 2017 — The Endangered Salmon and Fisheries Predation Prevention Act, introduced April 8 by U.S. Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) and Kurt Schrader (D-OR), aims to “clear up inefficiencies and red tape to allow more effective management of alarming predation levels by California sea lions on Columbia River spring Chinook and other species.”
If approved by Congress and the president, the legislation will authorize states and tribes to remove a limited number of predatory sea lions. It allows active management of the growing Columbia River sea lion population and removes a requirement that individual sea lions be identified as preying on salmon before they can be removed.
According to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) five-year review, sea lion management actions are needed in the Lower Columbia. The service stated, “…predation by pinnipeds [sea lions and seals] on listed stocks of Columbia River Basin salmon and steelhead, as well as eulachon, has increased at an unprecedented rate. So while there are management efforts to reduce pinniped predation in the vicinity of Bonneville Dam, this management effort is insufficient to reduce the severity of the threat, especially pinniped predation in the Columbia River estuary (river miles 1 to 145) and at Willamette Falls.”
A limited removal program has been in effect since 2011 but the NMFS review concluded that the current program doesn’t do enough to protect endangered salmon. Last year, approximately 190 sea lions killed over 9,500 adult spring Chinook within sight of Bonneville Dam. This represents a 5.8 percent loss of the 2016 spring Chinook run a quarter mile of Bonneville Dam alone. NOAA Fisheries Service also estimates that up to 45 percent of the 2014 spring Chinook run was potentially lost to sea lions in the 145 river miles between the estuary and Bonneville Dam.