Saving Seafood

Killer bill: House approves lethal removal of Columbia River sea lions

June 29, 2018 –A bill that would allow officials and local tribes to lethally remove sea lions from specific areas of the Columbia River passed its first hurdle on Tuesday, June 26, with a 288-116 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill is part of an effort to improve salmon survival rates in parts of Oregon and Washington.

The Endangered Salmon and Fisheries Predation Prevention Act, or H.R. 2083, amends Section 120 of the Marine Mammal Protection Act to give the Secretary of Commerce the ability to authorize state and local tribes to manage sea lions. Tribes would be able to apply for permits to kill sea lions preying on salmon runs.

“The passage of my bipartisan bill signals a return to a healthy, balanced Columbia River ecosystem by reining in the unnatural, overcrowded sea lion population that is indiscriminately decimating our fish runs,” said bill author Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.). She sponsored the legislation with Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.).

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates that sea lions consumed between about 4 and 6 percent of the salmon and steelhead runs below Bonneville Dam in recent years.

“For the salmon and steelhead fighting to make it upstream, [the]vote in the U.S. House significantly improves their chances of survival,” Beutler said. “We’re not anti-sea lion. We’re just for protecting a Pacific Northwest treasure: salmon, steelhead, sturgeon and other native fish species iconic to our region,” Beutler added.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act already allows state agencies to kill up to 96 “individually identifiable” sea lions seen eating endangered salmon. The amendment would allow state agencies and specific tribes in the region the authorization to grant permits allowing hunters to kill up to 100 sea lions per year after completing natural resources management training.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

House votes to curb salmon eaters: Bill would allow problem sea lions to be euthanized; Senate still must act

June 28, 2018 — A bill to expand the authority of Northwest fisheries agencies to help struggling native species in the lower Columbia and Willamette rivers by killing sea lions there passed the U.S. House on Tuesday.

The legislation, co-sponsored by Jamie Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., and Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., was approved by a 288-116 vote following years of inaction.

“For the salmon and steelhead fighting to make it upstream, today’s vote in the U.S. House significantly improves their chances of survival,” Herrera Beutler said.

“We are not anti-sea lion. We’re just for protecting a Pacific Northwest treasure: salmon, steelhead, sturgeon and other native fish species iconic to our region,” she said in a news release.

Schrader said salmon are central to the culture, identity and economy of the region.

“It is one of the reasons why we’ve, as a region, put so much time, energy and resources into protecting and recovering these iconic fish.”

Read the full story at The Spokesman-Review

Bill allowing lethal removal of sea lions passes

June 27, 2018 — A bill that allows tribes to lethally remove sea lions from sections of the Columbia River passed in the U.S. House on Tuesday. The bill is championed by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, and Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore.

“For the salmon and steelhead fighting to make it upstream, today’s vote in the U.S. House significantly improves their chances of survival,” Herrera Beutler said from the House floor Tuesday. “The passage of my bipartisan bill signals a return to a healthy, balanced Columbia River ecosystem by reining in the unnatural, overcrowded sea lion population that is indiscriminately decimating our fish runs.”

HR 2083, known as the Endangered Salmon and Fisheries Predation Prevention Act, amends Section 120 of the Marine Mammal Protection Act to give the Secretary of Commerce the ability to authorize state and local tribes to manage sea lions, specifically California and Steller sea lions. Tribes can seek permits to kill sea lions predating on endangered salmon runs. Federal estimates show at least 20 percent of the Columbia River spring chinook run and 15 percent of the Willamette River steelhead run are being eaten by sea lions.

“We’re not anti-sea lion. We’re just for protecting a Pacific Northwest treasure: salmon, steelhead, sturgeon and other native fish species iconic to our region,” Herrera Beutler said. “My bill provides state and tribal managers with the tools they need to humanely manage the most problematic pinnipeds. Simply put, this measure cuts through the bureaucratic red tape, streamlines the permitting process, and allows states and tribes to rapidly respond to remove sea lions from areas they pose the most threat to salmon recovery.”

Permits issued to tribes are exempt from environmental review requirements outlined in the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 for five years. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration can suspend the issuance of permits to tribes in five years if lethal takes are no longer needed to protect fish runs from sea lion predation.

Read the full story at The Columbian

But Sea Lions Seem So Cute…

June 26, 2018 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources: 

We’re seeing another busy week unfold for us at Nat. Resources this week, as the Rules Committee officially announced that a vote for H.R. 2083, the Endangered Salmon and Fisheries Predation Prevention Act, is set for tomorrow. Introduced by U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), the bipartisan bill provides states and tribes the necessary tools to humanely manage sea lions that have migrated outside their historic range and pose an imminent threat to fish species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

But Sea Lions Seem So Cute…

Don’t judge a book by its cover. Sea lions pose a significant threat to ESA-listed salmon and steelhead, and while the world took notice of last year’s viral sea lion attack, tribal, subsistence and commercial fisheries have long felt the effects of the hearty appetite of non-native sea lions across the Columbia River watershed. Endangered salmon have become the victims of conflicting federal laws that make it illegal to responsibly manage the obvious predator: sea lions.

Broad Member & Stakeholder Bipartisan Support

The bill enjoys a strong bipartisan backing, with U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) as an original cosponsor, and a significant list of local and regional groups voicing support, including the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho, the Columbia Intertribal Fish Commission, the Coastal Conservation Associations of Washington and Oregon, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, and more than 100 local and recreational fishing businesses.

Learn more about the House Committee on Natural Resources here.

 

Sea lion removal bill makes headway

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.

Read the full story at The Spokesman-Review

OREGON: One state’s plan to save a protected species is to kill another species

June 18, 2018 — For years, hundreds of California sea lions have colonized the docks in the Oregon port town of Astoria, their loafing brown bodies serving as both a tourist attraction and a nuisance begrudgingly tolerated by officials. Authorities have deployed deterrents — including beach balls, electrified mats and a mechanical orca — in futile attempts to scare off the pinnipeds without harming them, because they are protected under federal law.

But when it comes to sea lions that swim their way from the coast to inland rivers, Oregon officials are no longer feeling so indulgent. After years of nonlethal hazing efforts, the state wildlife agency is now seeking permission to kill them.

The sea lions are a target because of their voracious appetite for threatened and endangered fish. They gobble up so many winter steelhead at Willamette Falls, south of Portland, that state biologists say there’s a 90 percent chance the fish run will go extinct. If granted a special permit from the federal government, Oregon could trap and kill as many as 92 sea lions at the falls each year.

The conflict pits one protected species against another in an unusual battle that kill-plan proponents say is lopsided in favor of a thriving predator and that opponents say makes the species a scapegoat. Although hunting, bounties, habitat loss and pollutants caused the California sea lions’ population to drop below 90,000 in the 1970s, it has steadily risen since the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act and now numbers nearly 300,000, or what the act calls “optimum sustainable population.” With the increase of the hulking animals has come tension over resources from beaches to fish.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Washington rep. hosts discussion on salmon, sea lion population management

May 31, 2018 — KALAMA, Wash. — As the sea lion population in the Columbia River goes up, so does the impact to the region’s fishing industry.

On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., met with area fishing guides to talk about how to handle it.

Earlier this year, Herrera Beutler co-sponsored the bipartisan Endangered Salmon and Fisheries Predation Prevention Act with Oregon U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore.

She said she’s still trying to get support for the legislation. The bill streamlines the process for state wildlife officials to manage the sea lion population.

Read the full story at KLEW

 

Oregon: Sea lions continue to eat endangered fish

May 29, 2018 — All the time, money and sacrifice to improve salmon and steelhead passage in the Willamette River won’t mean a thing unless wildlife managers can get rid of sea lions feasting on the fish at Willamette Falls.

That was the message Tuesday from Shaun Clements, senior policy adviser for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, who met at the falls with Liz Hamilton, executive director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, and Suzanne Kunse, district director for U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore.

The group watched as several sea lions patrolled the waterfalls and nearby fish ladders. Clements said there could be as many as 50-60 sea lions in the area on any given day in April or early May, and the animals are responsible for eating roughly 20 percent of this year’s already paltry winter steelhead run.

As of May 22, ODFW has counted just 2,086 winter steelhead at Willamette Falls. That’s less than half of the 10-year average and 22 percent of the 50-year average.

ODFW applied in October 2017 to kill sea lions from Willamette Falls under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, though Clements said he does not expect a decision from the National Marine Fisheries Service until the end of the year. The department also tried relocating 10 California sea lions to a beach south of Newport earlier this year, only to see the animals return in just six days.

Read the full story at the Capital Press

 

Senators Feinstein, Harris introduce bill to ban drift nets in California

April 30, 2018 — A bipartisan bill to ban controversial drift net fishing off California’s coast was introduced Thursday by Democratic California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, along with West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito.

The nets, which can be more than a mile long, are intended to catch swordfish but end up trapping dolphins, sea lions and a host of other marine life, many of which die.

“The use of drift nets to target swordfish harms too many endangered or protected marine animals and should be phased out,” Feinstein said in an emailed statement. “It’s unacceptable that a single California fishery that uses this type of drift net is killing more dolphins and porpoises than the rest of the West Coast combined.”

Large mesh drift nets are already banned in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, as well as off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Hawaii, according to Feinstein. Additionally, the United States is a signatory to international agreements that ban large drift nets in international waters.

Read the full story at the Orange County Register

 

Salmon survival: ‘We need more lethal removal of sea lions. Hazing is not the answer’

April 6, 2018 — Ted Walsey’s shotgun cracked like thunder, lobbing a cracker shell into the Columbia River and sending the big brown sea lion beneath the surface in search of friendlier waters. But the boat and the noises emanating from it weren’t far behind.

Just as crews from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission have for a number of years, Walsey, Bobby Begay and Reggie Sargeant patrolled the river just below Bonneville Dam on Wednesday afternoon, harassing but not killing sea lions with cracker shotgun shells and so-called seal bombs — both essentially big firecrackers, the former shot from a shotgun, the latter dropped by hand — downstream and away from the fish ladders, where endangered migratory salmon congregate.

For the salmon, it’s the first chokepoint on a long journey to their spawning grounds. For hungry sea lions, it’s like a quick trip to an all-you-can-eat buffet.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries division estimates about 45 percent of spring chinook salmon are lost between the mouth of the Columbia and Bonneville Dam, with sea lions being primarily responsible.

Sea lions — as well as whales, dolphins and porpoises — are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. For the last 15 years or so, states and tribes have been able to kill some sea lions, but they have to go through a long and laborious permitting process to do so on an animal-by-animal basis.

Read the full story at TDN