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http://www.opb.org/news/article/tribes-fisherman-rally-for-sea-lion-removal/
Tribes, Fisherman Rally For Sea Lion Removal
Around 200 fisherman and tribal members rallied near Willamette Falls Saturday. They showed support for a bill that would allow tribes with fishing rights to kill some sea lions on the Columbia river.
Sara Thompson, with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, says sea lions have eaten about twice as many fish as usual at the dams this year.
“We’ve seen probably, just in the quarter mile below Bonneville dam, over 8,000 Salmon and Steelhead consumed by sea lions,” she said.
The bill, HR 564, is sponsored by Oregon Democrat Kurt Schrader and Washington Republican Jaime Herrera-Beutler.
State wildlife managers in Oregon, Washington and Idaho already have the authority to trap and kill sea lions, and have euthanized at least 30 this year.
The bill would also allow states and tribes to target sea lions that prey on a broader range of fish, not just those that snack on threatened salmon.
Federal biologists say the high number of sea lions spotted this year on the Columbia are the result of strong smelt and salmon runs. They say unusually warm ocean temperatures have made it difficult for the marine mammals to find prey off the California coast and have driven them north.
Exposing the Big Game 
Get these people to go somewhere else… who was there first? Let me guess: the SEA LIONS 🙂 c
This is shameful and makes no sense at all. Tribal members ought to be really ashamed. The sea lions are not the problem. Get rid of/update the dams and other human-caused obstacles to salmon. Our overpopulation is the root of all of the problems today, and tribal members who go along with this, I don’t know what to say. With their history with European Americans, they should know better.
Of course, I’d be willing to bet some of these tribal members have very little Native American and mostly European ancestry. I wish I could find it – there was a very amusing political cartoon back when Elizabeth Warren’s controversy was in the local papers – a whale swimming in Boston’s swan pond and a person saying to another – “he’s 1/32 swan”.
++Sara Thompson, with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, says sea lions have eaten about twice as many fish as usual at the dams this year.++
++The bill would also allow states and tribes to target sea lions that prey on a broader range of fish, not just those that snack on threatened salmon.++
WTF? So are they saying that other creatures that try to survive alongside us greedy aren’t entitled to any fish at all????? It’s one thing to worry about hatchery fish, but quite another to extend it to other fish, and it is just plain wrong.
I have a real fear that when resources become severely strained in the future due to human overpopulation, global warming, and human-commandeered water-taking (otherwise known as ‘drought’), that it is going to get really ugly. 😦
I hope this bill heads straight for the trash bin.
The ugliness is already upon us; but you’re right, we probably aint seen nothing yet.
When the wild salmon runs don’t make it because their spawning streams are drying up (as a result of record-low snow pack thanks to climate change), they will really start blaming the sea lions (who are themselves a victim of climate change with their offspring starving in California).
And I hope you’re right about this bill heading straight to the trash!
Why can’t these fishermen co-exist with our wildlife on the river? After all who’s fish is it really? The sea lions that live in the river that have no other food choices, People do,God did not create fish for fishermen alone.
The Sea Lions used to eat the lamprey on the river as their main food source until ODFW decided it was a great idea to poison all the lamprey because the fishermen where complaining. Now they want to kill more sea lions for eating less then 2 % of the fish?
I say lets get the fishermen off the river a few days early so the wildlife can eat instead of extending the days the fishermen can fish and deny our wildlife food that they need to survive.
I agree with the person above and hope this bill finds its way to the trash
Now the tribal fishermen have decided they want lamprey, so they’re blaming sea lions for eating too many of them.
People don’t seem to be interested in coexisting. Human beings believe they have the right to demand it all, including the right to reproduce and utilize resources until there is nothing left for the rest of the animals on this earth. With our history of destruction, it is hard to have much hope.
The reason I sound so harsh is that I can only judge by our local tribe where I live, who are upset by internal tribal government corruption, and outsiders horning in to Native American affairs – and the decisions made are many times not desired by the majority of the tribe either.