The hot iron is something right out of the Inquisition era. But while the Spanish Inquisition was a necessary evil to prevent heresy and extract confessions from witches, branding sea lions serves no real purpose. Oh sure, the modern day inquisitors will argue that the tortuous process helps them decide which individual sea lions are most responsible for the capital crime of eating salmon at the Bonneville dam upriver.

What you don’t hear them say is that sea lions have been eating fish for some 50 million years, ever since they left the land and evolved back into sea creatures. For the ensuing millennia, everyone got along just fine—until humans came by to fuck things up.

First, the humans strung nets and placed weirs out into the salmon’s migration path. Next they built canneries along the Columbia River; and while some people were busy killing off the salmon in droves, sealers murdered all the seals and sea lions and otters they could find, to fuel the booming, psychotic fur trade (for which the town of Astoria was first made famous). California sea lions were primarily rendered into oil by the equally-debased whaling industry.

The many dams built along the river were the coup de grace for any salmon still surviving the ever-advancing human onslaught. Not only do spawning salmon have to make it up past the massive new impediments, but warmer water behind the manmade reservoirs is hard on the young fish fry. And then there was the threat of the dam turbines…

Now, when a few sea lions are seen eating fish—as they’ve always done—they’re practically burned at the stake.

Text and Wildlife Photography© Jim Robertson