June 25, 2018 — Legislation that would make it easier for fisheries managers to kill sea lions preying on salmon, steelhead and other species is picking up speed after years of languishing in Congress.
The U.S. House of Representatives is likely to vote on the Endangered Salmon and Fisheries Preservation Act sometime next week. The Senate version of the bill, sponsored by Idaho Republican Jim Risch, picked up a key Democratic sponsor. Sen. Maria Cantwell signed on to the legislation, making it a bipartisan effort.
“We’ve been begging to get some bipartisan support on it,” said John Sandy, chief of staff for Risch. “Because where do we go if we don’t?”
The two senators, representing neighboring Northwest states that are both engaged in the decades-long effort to recover threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead, issued a news release Friday highlighting the need for the bill that has been amended from an earlier version.
“Salmon consumption at Bonneville Dam is five times what it was five years ago, and threatened and endangered species of salmon are being damaged by sea lions in the Columbia River,” Risch said.
Cantwell called salmon “central to our culture, our livelihoods and our economy in the Pacific Northwest.”
Sea lions feasting on salmon and other fish at places like Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River and Willamette Falls on the Willamette River have been identified as one of the many threats facing protected salmon and steelhead runs. On the Willamette River, fisheries managers from Oregon say sea lion predation could cause a winter steelhead run to go extinct.