Marked Sea Lion Deserves Better
Over the weekend, monitors patrolled the Columbia river from the mouth all the way up to Bonneville Dam in order to observe the interactions between sea lions, salmon, and humans. Numerous predation events were witnessed, in which humans were seen pulling endangered salmon from the water and killing them.
Sea Lion Road Trip Demo!
The killing has begun on the Columbia. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) has already started killing sea lions on their hit list–ones who have been seen eating even one salmon at the Bonneville Dam. Last week, yet another sea lion was put to death behind our backs by (more…)
The Humane Society of the United States re-launched its legal effort to reverse federal agency and court decisions allowing the lethal removal of California sea lions from below Bonneville Dam on the lower Columbia River.
In a legal brief filed Monday (March 23) the HSUS argues that NOAA Fisheries Service has failed to explain how it can judge as “significant” the impacts predatory sea lions have on Columbia basin salmon runs while deciding that other, greater sources of mortality are not significant.
Monitoring of the lower Columbia today, from St Helens to Troutdale, revealed a sharp spike in the number of fishing boats on the water, and in the number of fishermen on the banks. Additional monitors above the Dam noted a great number of nets visible in the water. Anyone wondering why the salmon are disappearing might want to get down to the river and see for themselves. Not a single California sea lion was spotted on the lower Columbia today by monitors, but hundreds upon hundreds of fishermen were seen, stacked gunwale to gunwale across the river. Monitors witnessed fishermen yanking endangered salmon out of the water in the waters near St Helens, at the mouth of the Lewis river, in the Multnomah Channel near the St John’s bridge, and monitors recorded numerous predation events by human fishermen upon endangered salmon in the waters of the Columbia near the I-5 bridge.
In better times....
We learned today, to our horror, that yet another sea lion was put to death last week, behind closed doors. C643 died at the hands of rubber-gloved technicians on March 20th as he was immobilized in a crate just a short distance from his beloved home. This happened in secret, while monitors stood on the bank across the river, watching other men “humanely” deafen sea lions with seal bombs and blow holes into their flesh with rubber bullets.
Gun boat shooting at sea lions on March 25, 2009
I headed up to the dam today to bear witness to what is happening to the sea lions. Fishermen lined the bank on both the Oregon and the Washington sides. Many were clustered together with multiple poles in the water, and others were out in the river in small boats bristling with poles and nets. One cluster of fishermen, ironically, sat directly across the water from the traps. Speaking of traps, there is a third trap now visible from the Washington side, leading me to suspect that the State is stepping up efforts to trap and kill sea lions to cover up for all the human predation going on at the dam.
Another swath with the gun.
Shortly after I arrived, I ran into two other Sea Lion Defense Brigade monitors, who had come up there for the same reason that I had. Moments later, we met yet another monitor — someone who had seen a call-out on the Food Fight website, and had come up with a camera in hand to record what was happening up there. All together, there were five SLDB monitors up at Bonneville dam today that I saw. Who knows how many others were out there, at the dam or down in Astoria. (“We are everywhere.”) We stood on the banks in the rain together for awhile, watching the strange interplay between ancient, native species, and high-tech, unnatural human “management” techniques. Then we spread out to different locations, to cover a larger area with our camera lenses.
The Sea Lion Defense Brigade patrolled the Columbia yesterday from sites in Rainier, Goble, Columbia City, St Helens, Warrendale, Corbett, and on both the Oregon and the Washington side at Bonneville Dam. In addition, monitoring occurred along the Multnomah Channel, where no sea lions were spotted, but many fishermen in boats were seen attempting to pull salmon from the water.
Trusting Friends
At Bonneville Dam, a sea lion defense brigadier witnessed a gunboat charging through the waters below the dam, running down sea lions and firing weapons at them. There were several armed men aboard the boat, toting guns that looked to be some sort of rifles. As no dead sea lions were seen, we believe that this was hazing. Either way, it looked pretty cruel, and it resulted in sea lions disappearing from the waters of their ancient feeding grounds. (Remember, before the dam was there, and long before we were here, sea lions traveled to the base of Celilo Falls, where they fed on salmon as part of the cycle of life, the dance between predator and prey, that made both species stronger. Despite the presence of sea lions at this “bottle neck” below the falls, the salmon thrived in numbers greater than anyone has seen since the arrival of non-Native fishermen to the area.)
SLDBrigade was patrolling this rainy tues. in Astoria. It was pretty quiet down by the docks, except for a few sea lions barking and a few others sniffling. There were also some tourists taking pictures of the sea lions lounging on the docks. One woman we talked to was visiting from Toronto and was happily standing in the rain taking photographs. It seems like every time any of us are patrolling (more…)
In reviewing documents recently released to the SLDB, we have discovered that, apparently, the states plan to kill sea lions anywhere, at any time. Not only at the dam, and not only in the spring, but at any time and anywhere outside their breeding grounds.
According to a document from the offices of the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Services, (more…)
All the brass from the ODFW, WDFW, and Army Corps of Engineers are out at the dam at this very moment, frantically attempting to do advance damage control over possible public reaction to the news that the trapping and killing program has begun. So far, at least two sea lions are in state custody. It could be more, since officials are trying (more…)