This week the numbers of sea lions near the dam have dropped off considerably as they begin to return to the mouth of the Columbia as part of their natural migration down the coast. While the numbers at the dam have decreased, the numbers of California and Stellars have risen in Astoria as most will prepare to leave the area.
This week we talked to quite a few people visiting the river with binoculars and cameras trying to catch a glimpse of the sea lions in action. SLDB talked to many locals visiting from Stevenson, North Bonneville, Portland, Troutdale and Vancouver. However, we have also made friends with members of the Yakima tribe (who still need to stop by to try some nettles 
) and we met people SPECIFICALLY visiting the area for the sea lions from Idaho and Seattle.
Yesterday, Sea Wolf One visited Stevenson and received a very warm welcome! Early in the day i met one of the locals at the waterfront as i was picking up discarded still baited fishing hooks, fishing line, and rope from the shore. George, who is a local artist and bagpipe player expressed his disgust for the overfishing on the river after i introduced myself as being a part of SLDB. He told me that in the summer the river is overflowing with fishing boats.
that’s a disturbing thought.
While at the waterfront and talking to George, i had the pleasure to meet another local who used to work as a commercial fisherman on the coast. He pointed out the gill nets set up on our stretch of the river, and added that they could very well be abandoned. Stevenson lies on the Washington side of the Columbia about 5 miles east of Bonneville dam. The deadly practice of gill net fishing is allowed only by native people on this stretch of the river where hundreds of nets can be seen during certain times of the year. He pointed out that native fishers lose and/or abandon their nets every year and leave ghost nets floating dangerously to ensnare and kill fish and other river species all year long.
Wow! you would think with 18 threatened fish species in the Columbia, outlawing gill net fishing would be a no-brainer.
This ex-commercial fisherman went on to tell me that, “where once you could walk on the backs of the salmon to cross the Columbia River, you can now cross on the gill nets, there are so many.” He went on to say, “The white fishermen and the Indians are in a pissing contest to see who can kill the last salmon,” then shaking his head,”I don’t understand it.”
Later, i met with a local supporter at the brewery where we shared a few beers and enjoyed the bagpipes that George and others were playing. Wow! they are fantastic! There are a few locals that play bagpipes next to the Walking Man Brewery on saturday evening- and, well, WOW! While at the brewery, i met lots of new people who i shared information about the challenges sea lions who come upriver face. Everyone i talked to on this part of the river pointed to the dams and the gill netting.
huh? interesting, so its not the sea lions.
While most people i talked to seemed to be already well-educated about this issue, there was one older gentleman that approached my table who perhaps had sampled a little too much of the strong beer and began masticating his bad breath and argument for why sea lions should die at me. As a sturgeon fisherman, he resented the sea lions for killing the gentle, long-lived sturgeon whose populations have dropped significantly over the last 150 years. He resented them for killing sturgeon- but he kills sturgeon–huh? curious.
Stellar sea lions, who are a listed threatened species eat Sturgeon- among lots of other species of fish. They were observed eating around 1,000 sturgeon between 3-4ft. long (not the big 6-7ft. breeding females as some fisherman think) at the dam between January 2010 to the present as recorded by the ODFW wildlife biologist Robert Stancell. California sea lions, who the federal govt. has granted the authority to kill, do not eat sturgeon.
He also attempted to perpetuate the myth that sea lions only eat the belly of the sturgeon, which is wildly untrue. Just call Robert Stancell, the ODFW biologist and ask. They eat much of the fish or the whole fish, and that which is not eaten stays within the eco-system feeding birds, fish, and other aquatic species. When a fisherman takes a sturgeon or any other fish out of the river, the eco-system loses the bio-mass that would have gone to supporting the non-human life in the river.
Once again, thank you to all the community support that has been shown to the sea lion defense effort. We would like to invite people to come out and visit Sea Wolf One this week on the Washington side of the river, just west of the Bonneville dam. We are there from 5am-8pm (sometimes till 10pm) mon-fri. Come out and see the california and stellar sea lions in the native home in the Columbia river!
Thank you for being there for the sea lions. One question, when did the monitoring change from 24 hours 7 days a week to 15 hours 5 days a week? From the reports it seems that most of the capturing happens in the dark at night. Why would the sea lion defenders stop watching the death traps during the hours of darkness when they are most likely to be used?
hey Betty
the place from which the sea lion monitoring is done is a place where people aren’t allowed to park between 10pm and 5am. you can tell because the fishermen line up at night and sleep in their trucks so they can wake up early and drive thru the gate to go fishing. thus, the Sea Wolf One can only park there for a maximum of 17 hours per day.
also, they don’t trap on weekends, so no need to be there all the time on Saturday or Sunday.