March 22, 2012 – Oregon state authorities can resume killing California sea lions that feast on endangered salmon bottled up at a dam on the Columbia River, but fewer than one-third as many as federal biologists previously had authorized, a judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg in Washington, D.C., denied the Humane Society of the United States request to stop the killing at the Bonneville Dam while a lawsuit challenging the program goes forward. But he limited the killing to 30 animals a year instead of the 92 authorized by federal authorities, and ordered that none of them may be shot.
"The case will go forward, and we feel we have a very strong case in the end," Humane Society marine program leader Sharon Young said of their third attempt to permanently halt the killings since they started in 2008.
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