CALL TO ACTION: Oppose the Planned Killing of 16,000 Cormorants Along the Columbia River

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Exposing the Big Game

http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/2014/07/07/call-to-action-oppose-the-planned-killing-of-16000-cormorants-along-the-columbia-river-1602

Cormorants are being targeted simply
because they eat salmon
Photo: Sea Shepherd The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has announced plans to shoot thousands of double-crested cormorants in the Columbia River Estuary beginning next year.

Much like California sea lions at the Columbia River, cormorants are being targeted simply because they eat salmon. Federal officials are claiming that these seabirds, protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, eat too many juvenile salmon, as well as steelhead, as the fish migrate through the river estuary to the Pacific Ocean. The proposed cull program would claim the lives of 16,000 cormorants over the course of four years, with killing taking place during the birds’ nesting seasons. Oil will also be spread over cormorant eggs to suffocate the eggs and ensure that they do not hatch. While the Army Corps emphasizes the increase in the East Sand Island double-crested cormorant population in recent years, populations of these birds in general have been declining and the sustainability of this large-scale cull is questionable at best.

Sea Shepherd’s Dam Guardians were on the frontlines along the Columbia River and at the Bonneville Dam in 2012 and 2013, documenting the hazing, trapping and cruel branding of sea lions by the Oregon and Washington Departments of Fish & Wildlife for the “crime” of eating salmon. If any of the branded sea lions are determined to be eating “too many” salmon, they are killed – and the federal government has allowed these states to kill up to 92 federally protected sea lions each year until June 2016. It is important to note that “too many salmon” might constitute just one salmonid. The sea lion cull continues, despite the fact that they consume only 1-4% of the salmon, while fisheries are typically allowed to take 10-12%.

USDA bird hazer sets off explosives at the
Bonneville Dam, May 2013
Photo: Sea ShepherdThe Army Corps reports that non-lethal methods – including “hazing with lights, reducing nesting habitat, and using human presence to flush double-crested cormorants off potential nesting sites” – have been tested. Sea Shepherd has documented bird hazers from the USDA harassing cormorants along the river, frightening the birds with explosives.

Just as the taxpayer-funded culling of sea lions at the Bonneville Dam will not solve the problem of a declining salmon population, nor will the shooting and killing of cormorants – set to cost up to $1.5 million each year of the four-year cull. The scapegoating of these innocent animals redirects the public’s focus from the real problems at the Columbia – overfishing, a polluted river filled with toxins, and the dam itself.

CALL TO ACTION: Though Sea Shepherd does not currently have Dam Guardians on the ground, we remain dedicated to protecting the animals who call the Columbia River home and exposing the true threats to this endangered salmon population. Please join us in speaking out against the planned killing of 16,000 cormorants for the “crime” of eating salmon. Here are ways you can help:

1) Attend one or both of the upcoming public meetings scheduled by the Army Corps of Engineers to discuss the proposed cull to show that you stand with the cormorants and the sea lions, as well as the salmon:

July 10 from 2:30pm to 5:30pm PT
Matt Dishman Community Center
77 N.E. Knott St.
Portland, Oregon

July 24 from 3pm to 6pm

Best Western Lincoln Inn
555 Hamburg Ave.
Astoria, Oregon

2) Submit public comments against the cull:

Email: Cormorant-EIS@usace.army.mil

Mail:

Sondra Ruckwardt
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District
Attn: CENWP-PM-E / Double-creasted cormorant draft EIS
P.O. Box 2946
Portland, OR 97208-2946

The deadline for public comments is August 4, 2014.

First sea lions. Now cormorants. Where and when will it end?

Visit our
Dam Guardians
site

Please Sign Petition to Stop Wildlife “Services” From Killing Canada Geese

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Exposing the Big Game

Photo copyright Jim Robertson

USDA Wildlife Services has been lethally removing Canada Geese from the Puget Sound area for 13 years under an interlocal agreement between several cities and entities within the region. The geese are being rounded up in our parks and gassed to death or shot on Lake Washington, as well as elsewhere. In 2013, nearly 1200 were killed by Wildlife Services in just King County alone.

Many humane solutions can be utilized to mitigate conflicts with geese in urban areas. These include reduction of populations through egg addling, use of OvoControl-G (a proven oral birth control method for geese), and sterilization. Various other measures to reduce conflicts include: landscape modifications, goose deterrent products and control techniques, automated devices to clean up goose droppings, and education and public outreach on the need to stop feeding waterfowl in our parks.

The members of the 2014 interlocal agreement to kill geese include Bellevue, Kent, Kirkland, Mountlake Terrace, Port of Seattle – Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Renton, Seattle Parks and Recreation, SeaTac, Tacoma Metro Parks, Tukwila, Woodinville, and the University of Washington.

Please sign the Change.org petition “Puget Sound Area Officials: Stop Killing Canada Geese” at

https://www.change.org/petitions/puget-sound-area-officials-stop-killing-canada-geese

Also, please share the petition and like us on Facebook at

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peace-For-Geese-Project/437565559713573

We must learn to share the earth with wildlife.

Feds Planning Mass Killing of Columbia River Cormorants

Posted on June 14, 2014 by Exposing the Big Game

Paintings Courtesy Barry Kent MacKay

[Remember the birds next time you buy salmon or fish oil.]

Fri Jun 13, 2014.

Bye, bye birds

Feds plan: Kill salmon-eating Sand Island seabirds

PORTLAND (AP) — Federal officials are proposing to kill half the large colony of cormorants in the Columbia River estuary because the large black seabirds eat too many young salmon and steelhead.

The proposal is the preferred action in a draft management plan released Thursday by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The colony of double-crested cormorants on East Sand Island near the mouth of the Columbia consumes about 11 million juvenile salmon per year as it migrates through the river to the Pacific Ocean. The fish are listed as endangered.

Officials say despite reductions in nesting habitat, the cormorant population has continued to thrive. It has increased from 100 breeding pairs in 1989 to about 15,000 breeding pairs today. That makes it the largest cormorant colony in western North America, representing over 40 percent of the region’s cormorant population.

The Corps has been studying the impact of avian predation on juvenile salmon in the Columbia since 1997. Officials also have looked into methods such as hazing with lights and using human presence to flush cormorants off potential nesting sites.

Now federal officials are proposing to reduce the colony to 5,600 breeding pairs by killing half of them, trying to scare off the others and taking their eggs.

The $1.5 million-a-year program, planned over four years, would arm federal trappers with silenced rifles and night-vision scopes to shoot the birds during their nesting season. They’d also cover eggs in oil to prevent them from hatching and inundate part of the island once the cormorant population reaches a target to limit nesting.

Once the target colony size is attained, the Corps also is proposing to modify the terrain of East Sand Island to inundate some nesting habitat.

The Corps passed over an alternative that would only use nonlethal methods, saying it would be less effective and push cormorants to nest elsewhere in the Columbia River estuary or in other coastal areas with endangered fish.

“That is a significant concern,” said Sondra Ruckwardt, the Army Corps’ project manager overseeing the plan. “We’re trying not to move the problem.”

Double-crested cormorants have orange faces and long necks, and are masters at diving to catch small fish. They are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and are native to the Columbia.

Federal officials also are trying to protect salmon by killing off sea lions — another protected species that has also proved too difficult to scare off with non-lethal methods.

The public has through Aug. 4 to comment on the cormorant plan.

Makah Want Another Whale

Posted on May 18, 2014 by Exposing the Big Game

Makah whalers celebrate atop a dead gray whale in Neah Bay after the successful hunt in this May 17, 1999, photo. — Elaine Thompson/The Associated Press

Makah group marks anniversary of whale hunt (AP)

…Meanwhile, federal officials are in the process of finalizing an environmental review that could lead to another hunt, the Daily News reported. The tribe is currently seeking authorization from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries agency under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to hunt gray whales for subsistence purposes.

In 2012, NOAA scrapped a 2008 draft environmental impact statement of Makah whaling and began a new draft environmental impact statement, after new scientific information found that a group of gray whales that frequents the Washington coast may be different than the 20,000 whales that migrate past the state each year on their way between Alaskan and Mexican waters.

Donna Darm, associate deputy administrator for the NOAA’s west region, said a new statement incorporating that information should be ready for public review by the fall.

“There’s been a lot of new science that we received since the 2008 draft,” Darm told the Daily News Thursday.

That information will not necessarily affect the tribe’s hunt, but it will require that tribal hunters carefully identify what group any future whales they take come from, according to the Daily News.

“Nothing we’ve learned really changes what the tribe has proposed in the first place,” Darm said. “It just changes what we see as far as impacts.”

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20140517/NEWS/305179987/makah-group-plans-to-mark-whale-hunt-anniversary-saturday-in-neah-bay

….Animal welfare and other groups decried the 1999 killing and later sued to stop the hunts.

Legal challenges then put the whale hunts on hold.

In 2004, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Makah could not obtain a waiver under the Marine Mammal Protection Act until an environmental assessment was prepared.

An illegal whale hunt in 2007 led to the death of gray whale and federal prison sentences for two Makah tribal members, including Johnson.

PETA offers up to $5,000 for info about seal-killing

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Exposing the Big Game

http://www.chinookobserver.com/free/peta-offers-up-to-for-info-about-seal-killing/article_4a3a31c7-34ca-5421-8a9b-96c8d1d3ec30.html

Thu May 8, 2014 By Natalie St. John ChinookObserver.com

OCEAN PARK, Wash. — A prominent animal-rights group is offering as much as $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the party responsible for an April incident that led to the mortal injury and subsequent euthanization of a mother seal, and the disappearance of her newborn seal pup.

In a press release today, Sophia Charchuck, a spokesperson for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, wrote, “Officials have yet to make any arrests. That’s why PETA is offering up to $5,000…”

The incident occurred some time on the morning of Sunday,

A mother harbor seal, who had recently given birth, was found dead on the beach north of the Ocean Park beach approach last week, thought to have been a victim of an intentional vehicular killing.
Photo by SUZY WHITTEY / Chinook Observer

April 20, just hours after the mother seal had given birth. Herb McClintock, an Ocean Park retiree and volunteer who searches local beaches for injured wildlife on a near daily basis had placed warning signs around the animals, but it appears that a speeding driver plowed through the area, severing the mother’s tail. By the time McClintock returned around 8:30 that morning, the mother seal was near death, and the baby had vanished. Experts say there were no clues that hinted at the pup’s fate, but surmised that it could have been carried off by an animal, swept out to sea, or abducted by the assailants.

“It’s such an example of cruel callousness – I think a lot of people would be shocked by it,” Kristin Simon, a Senior Cruelty Caseworker with PETA said in a phone interview Thursday afternoon.

According to Simon, PETA has offered rewards for a variety of abuse, neglect and abandonment cases, but they prioritize violent crimes against animals, because studies have indicated that people who abuse one animal are likely to continue hurting animals, and may escalate to violence against human beings.

“People who abuse animals rarely do so only once and almost never stop there,” Simon said. The organization tends to offer rewards in instances where police investigations have stalled out, due to a lack of witnesses.

“We offer rewards generally in cases of unsolved cruelty to animals where police feel the reward could help bring someone to justice. When they don’t have those leads and just don’t have enough information to pursue the case, that’s where we step in,” Simon said. “Whoever can harm an animal, especially in this way has a level of callousness, and is very likely to share it with someone else … I think it’s highly likely someone knows something.”

Simon said the strategy has proven successful, and PETA has paid out “quite a few” rewards, which they fund through donations and the sale of merchandise.

“Our rewards are very successful because it is a lot of money. Who out there couldn’t use $5,000, just for doing the right thing?” Simon said.

This afternoon, NOAA enforcement officer Kevin Mitchell confirmed that his agency is actively investigating the incident, but declined to discuss the details of the investigation.

“There was some evidence, but I can’t discuss it any further. I can’t discus how great – or not great – it was,” Mitchell said.

According to him, acts of apparently intentional cruelty toward marine life are relatively rare on local beaches.

“I’ve been based out of Astoria now for two years and while I’ve worked other incidents that involved prohibited human interaction with marine mammals, this is the first case that I know of like this.”

Mitchell said he welcomed the reward.

“Any time a reward is offered, it can certainly help an investigation. A lot of times, with incidents that NOAA investigates, they occur in very rural areas without a lot of evidence left behind,” Mitchell said, “The best thing we can hope for is witnesses to the event or after the fact coming forward.”

Anyone with information about this case is encouraged to contact the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement toll-free at 1-800-853-1964 .

PETA Offers Up to $5,000 Reward for Help in Nabbing Person Who Killed Mother Seal

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Exposing the Big Game

http://www.peta.org/media/news-releases/peta-offers-5000-reward-help-nabbing-person-killed-mother-seal/

Federal Officials Seeking Culprit and Missing Baby Seal

For Immediate Release:
May 8, 2014

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 202-483-7382 FREE end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Ocean Park, Wash. – On April 19, a pregnant harbor seal gave birth on a beach just north of Ocean Park. Concerned residents set up a perimeter—complete with red flag–draped warning signs—and checked on the seals periodically. On the morning of April 20, a concerned resident arrived to find that someone had apparently driven a truck into the area and run over the seal, severing her tail. The seal had to be euthanized because of the extent of her injuries, and her baby remains missing.

Officials have yet to make any arrests. That’s why PETA is offering up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for this violent crime.

Would you please consider sharing this information with your audience? It might be the only way to apprehend those responsible for this heinous act.

“Study after study has confirmed that people who hurt animals often go on to hurt human beings,” says PETA Director Martin Mersereau. “PETA is urging anyone with information to come forward now, before another violent act is committed.”

Anyone with information about this case is encouraged to contact the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement toll-free at 1-800-853-1964 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-800-853-1964 FREE end_of_the_skype_highlighting .

For more information, please visit PETA.org. To listen to PETA’s anti-violence public service announcement—which features Inglourious Basterds star and Hostel director Eli Roth—please visit http://www.petatv.com/audio/psas/Eli_Roth_PSA_V3.mp3.

Seal/Sea Lion Killers Are Guilty of Hate Crimes

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Exposing the Big Game

(Note: The following was based on an earlier post I wrote on December 18, 2012, entitled Wolf Hunters Are Guilty of Hate Crimes. The wolf hunting and the seal/sea lion killing situations are so similar that about all I had to do was substitute the words seal/sea lions for wolf.)

It occurs to me that the killing of seal and sea lions by those who detest them qualifies as a hate crime. By definition, a hate crime is: A crime, usually violent, motivated by prejudice or intolerance toward a member of a social group.

Well, you don’t get a much more social group than a herd of sea lions—and you don’t find any greater prejudice or intolerance than among those who hate the seal family.

In addition to charges of pre-meditated murder and kidnapping, the person or persons who ran over the mother seal and left with her newborn pup in Ocean Park, WA, should be charged with committing hate crimes.

The same goes for the people who have been hatefully killing sea lions up at Bonneville Dam.

500 Sport Fishermen At Bonneville Dam, Only 38 Sea Lions

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Exposing the Big Game

From Sea Lion Defense Brigade:

Bonneville Dam – The Army Corps of Engineers reports they have viewed 38 California Sea Lions in the area. Today there are an estimated 500 fishermen on the surrounding banks.

It is obvious which species is overfishing. Yet, scapegoating c…ontinues and fishermen are actively hazing Sea Lions by throwing large rocks at their heads! While documenting this cruelty, 2 SLDB female observers were threatened with bodily harm.

There is no government agency checking fishing licenses or regulating catch limits today. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife can employee 6 workers to brand and KILL Sea Lions with tax payers money but can’t check fishing limits?!

Humans have many food options, Sea Lions do not!

Until the states of Washington and Oregon take responsibility for the real causes of the salmon decline and stop politically scapegoating Sea Lions, BOYCOTT COLUMBIA RIVER SALMON! See More

Your Custom and Cultural Quaintness Won’t Get You Out of it This Time

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Exposing the Big Game

Your hatred of seals and sea lions runs deep. Your father was a commercial fisherman, like his father before him. If they taught you anything about fishing, it was that marine mammals are the enemy. They serve no earthly purpose; the only good one is a dead one.

Never mind that seals and sea lions evolved over tens of millions of years to adapt to aquatic habitats, eventually becoming nature’s perfect fishers; that species of fish and other sea life evolved in harmony with pinnipeds and so were able to withstand their level of predation; or that the reasons salmon are more scarce than they were for your grand-pappy are all because of human activity—including commercial fishing.

That so-called “evolution” stuff is just some big lie made up by “scientists” who don’t know shit from Shinola and probably work for that other arch-enemy: the federal government. (Forget that the government has practically handed you a living since they granted your ancestors their first commercial fishing license.)

Your bible tells you the Earth is only 6,000 years old and that your god loves you better than he does any damn seal or sea lions. Anything you think you have to do to feed your family is forgivable in the eyes of the lord. Studying nature, any further than learning where the schools of fish are likely to be on a given day, is heresy.

Your sense of entitlement is trumped only by your all-consuming hatred of seals and sea lions. So what if they look cute and comical hauled out on beaches or docks in the marina, those beaches and docks belong to you, not them! So do the fish they steal from you and the nets they mess up when they get entangled in them.

So you bring your rifle along whenever you’re out at sea. Shooting them, as your daddy did before you, is the one thing that makes you feel better. It feels good when you see your bullet find its mark and tear into their flesh. It’s not legal anymore, but no one’s watching or does anything about it. You’d have to be pretty obvious to get into any trouble.

Who cares that most of them don’t die outright, but instead suffer slowly with of lead poisoning or infection. Most of them sink to the bottom eventually—out of sight, out of mind.

Sometimes they wash up on your beach or haul out to give birth. It really burns you when people appreciate them and try to protect them with signs warning drivers to watch out for them.

Last week a pregnant seal hauled out and people gushed while she brought yet another seal into the world. If there’s one thing there are too many of, it’s seals and sea lions. God will back you up on that. Do-gooders waited and watched over her, placing signs around her to warn motorists.

It shouldn’t have been an issue, since the upland dunes are off-limits to driving, but your hatred of seals and sea lions blinds you to rules and regulations. The do-gooders were around all day and into the evening, so you wait until the early-morning tide, when no one will witness.

You’ve watched the seal from a distance and know just where to find her as you drive your big, jacked-up four-by-four a mile north of the Ocean Park beach approach. This is your home turf and you know exactly where to go. You find the seal and her pup just where you saw them the day before, in the upland dune grass, where the feds say you shouldn’t drive because some nesting birds take precedence over your fun.

The signs on either side of the seals are visible before the animals are, and you use them to help you zero in on your target. Shooting them would be easier, but the noise might attract attention, so you do the next best thing—you run right over the mother seal, severing her tail.

Checking on your handy work, you see that she’s bleeding badly and will no doubt die

from her wounds. The pup, on the other hand, is unharmed, but bleating noisily. Someone will probably nurse it back to health if they find it there, so you stuff the newborn pup in a sack, throw it in the back of the truck and bring it to your property in the woods.

What you do with the pup there, people can only speculate. It might come out later in your trial. You were sloppy this time; you left tire tracks where people don’t normally drive. It’s not like no one knows you or ever sees you driving the beach there.

You shocked a lot of people and a lot of folks are angry. People may like to celebrate fishermen, but your feeble rationalizations and your custom and cultural quaintness won’t get you out of it this time.

Text and Wildlife Photography© Jim Robertson

When Humans are Gone, Who’ll be Around to Brand the Sea Lions?

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Exposing the Big Game

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.

Exposing the Big Game

Forget Hunters' Feeble Rationalizations and Trust Your Gut Feelings: Making Sport of Killing Is Not Healthy Human Behavior

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