Myths:

i. Sea lions are non-native to the Columbia river
ii. Sea lions are overpopulating
iii. Sea lions are coming too far upriver
iv. The Bonneville dam creates a bottleneck giving Sea lions an unfair advantage
v. Sea lions are a significant factor in salmon predation
vi. Killing Sea lions is a last resort to save salmon
vii. Relocating has been sufficiently tried
xiii. The experts say we have to and government experts are always right
ix. Those advocating for Sea lion protection are responding through emotion
x. Saving salmon depends on removing Sea lions
xi. Sea lions are overly aggressive
xii. There is no harm in killing 85 Sea lions
xiii. California Sea lions are killing the sturgeon

Salmon and Sea Lions: Myths and Facts

Here in the Pacific NW, we are experiencing a crisis in the wild salmon population on the Columbia river. While there were once millions of salmon on this river, there are now less than 1% of the historical runs. This is a complex issue, with many factors to consider. In March of last year, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) approved a proposal to begin addressing the salmon crisis by killing some of the sea lions on the Columbia. This proposal is problematic for many reasons, one of the most important being that it will not save the salmon. There are many myths floating around in the media about both the salmon and sea lions, and about the proposal to kill some of the sea lions. Below, some of these myths are collected and dispelled with facts.

MYTH:
i. Sea lions are not native to the Columbia river. Some people believe that, because the word sea is in their name, sea lions belong in the ocean and not the river. Others believe that, because we have named these animals California sea lions, they belong in California. Many people see them as an invasive, exotic species to the Columbia river bio-region.

FACT: Sea lions have always been on the Columbia river. They have co-evolved with salmon over countless generations. The archaeological record shows sea lions to have been on the Columbia river with the salmon for at least ten thousand years. Bones and other evidence demonstrates that, not only have sea lions been in the Columbia for millennia, they were also once here year round, rather than only
passing through in the spring, as they do now. The presence of sea lions, far up into the Columbia, has been recorded in the artwork and stories of Native Americans, who have also been in this region for a very long time. The name California simply refers to the area of their largest breeding colonies.

MYTH:
ii.Sea lions are experiencing a population explosion, and are therefore out of balance with the eco-system. People who promote this myth believe that there are more sea lions in the river than the
ecosystem can sustain, and must therefore be killed on the river in order to restore balance.

FACT: Sea lions are almost certainly not as populous now as they were before humans hunted them nearly to extinction, beginning in the early to mid 1800s. Since no one did population censuses back then, we cannot be sure. However, we do know that sea lions were quite numerous on the Columbia prior to the arrival of white settlers in this region, and that beginning in the 1800s and all the way into the early 1970s, those white settlers hunted sea lions nearly to extinction. When Lewis and Clark came into the region, they were greeted by 20 million salmon in the river. They also remarked on the vast number of seals and sea lions that they saw here, going all the way up to Celilo Falls. After Lewis and Clark, white settlers moved into this region, and began fishing and hunting on the Columbia. By the late 1800s, there were
more than 50 canneries on the Columbia, and they packed more than 40 million pounds of salmon per year.

Even back then, at least one US Fish and Wildlife official worried aloud that so much unrestrained
over-fishing would damage the runs, and so it has.

One fish wheel, Seufert’s No. 5 averaged 146,000 pounds of salmon per year. In 1906 it caught 418,000 pounds. Its one-day record was May 10, 1913, when it caught 70,000 pounds.

At the same time that they were over-fishing the waters, settlers were killing sea lions for their skins, their blubber, their meat (which they often used for dog food), and for entertainment. Later, as salmon began to decline due to over-fishing, humans began killing sea lions because they saw them as competing for a scarce resource. After less than a century of this hunting and over-fishing, both populations were nearing extinction. At the same time that sea lion numbers were dwindling, so were salmon numbers. So obviously, the connection between salmon and sea lions is not a negative curve. The famous June Hogs, the summer run Chinook, were all but gone by the 1930s due to human predation, not sea lion predation. This run disappeared altogether with the advent of the dams. Sea lions were faring even worse than the salmon. In the 1930s, the number of California sea lions on the entire West coast has been estimated to be as low as 1000 animals. They hovered near extinction until 1972, when the Marine Mammal Protection Act was signed into law, making it illegal to kill sea lions. Since that time, their numbers have seen a remarkable rebound, due to the absence of human predation. So it is likely that there are, in fact, more sea lions on the Columbia now than any of us remember. However, even though there are more sea lion now than we remember, it is likely that there are nevertheless fewer now than there were in the past, before white settlers came into the region.

MYTH:
iii.Sea lions are coming too far into the river, in search of salmon. This is a new phenomenon, driven by the growing number of sea lions, and the dwindling number of salmon.

FACT: Not only have sea lions always been in the Columbia, they have also always followed the salmon far up the river. Before the dams were built, the sea lions came even farther into the river, all the way up to Celilo Falls.

MYTH:
iv. Even though sea lions have always been on the river, their presence is more problematic now than in the past, because the Bonneville Dam presents an artificial bottleneck, where the salmon congregate and present easy prey for the sea lions. The sea lions sit below the dam and gobble up the salmon. This was not a problem in the past, and is not one that the salmon have evolved to handle. Therefore, those sea lions who habitually come to feed at the base of the dam should be killed to protect the salmon.

FACT: Although the dam itself is, indeed, an enormous problem for the salmon, and one of the most important factors in the salmon crisis, this is not because of the sea lions eating fish below the dam. On the contrary, there is nothing new or unprecedented about a bottleneck that slows the fish down, making them a target for sea lions. In the past, that bottleneck was Celilo Falls. And indeed, this is where
seals and sea lions tended to congregate for the thousands of years before the dam was built. But, again, even with such a bottleneck, and even with a great number of sea lions feeding on the salmon there, the
two species lived in balance and harmony with each other. Despite the natural bottleneck at Celilo falls, there were around twenty millions salmon in the river at the time of Lewis and Clark.
One of the reasons why there is a “run” of salmon each season is that this is an evolutionary strategy that the salmon have evolved in order to “swamp” natural predators like sea lions. The idea is that there are so many of them that the sea lions can hunt the sick, the weak, and the less adapted among them, while the run survives. The salmon can handle natural predators; What they cannot handle is thousands of anglers and gill nets on the river and a series of giant dams that kill tens of thousands of them every year.
No, the reason that the dams are harmful to salmon has nothing to do with sea lions. Dams are harmful to salmon because they close off thousands of miles of habitat, because they create deep, warm, slow-moving water where salmon have evolved to live in swift, shallow, cold water, and because the dams, themselves, chew up and kill tens of thousands of salmon each year in their turbines.

MYTH:
v. Sea lion predation is “out of control” and is a significant factor in the decline of the salmon.

FACT: According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the NMFS, sea lion predation is responsible for taking between 0.2% and 4.2% of the spring runs. If this seems like a lot of salmon, consider that the number of salmon killed by sea lions pales in comparison to the number of salmon killed by humans. Dams, loss of habitat, and over-fishing have sent salmon spiraling toward extinction. Where salmon lived and thrived in harmony with sea lions for more than 100 centuries, it has taken humans only one century to reduce salmon from 20 million to just about one percent of that number. The dams, alone, account for the killing of more than 50 percent of each run.

Some estimates are as high as 75 percent. As noted above, dams harm salmon by closing off habitat, by killing fish in the turbines, and by creating warm, still bodies of water where, once, the river was swift, shallow, and cold. The salmon evolved over millennia to live in cold, shallow, fast-moving water. Warmer temperatures behind the dams kill the salmon. Those fish who are able to survive these conditions are faced with over-fishing, both in the river and out in the ocean. Indeed, at the same time that fish and wildlife officials are describing sea lion predation as a significant factor in the decline of salmon, these
same organizations are allowing human fishermen to legally extract three times as many salmon from the river as they are accusing sea lions of taking. They say that allowing humans to kill tens of thousands of salmon is acceptable at the same time that they say that sea lions, accused of taking a fraction as many salmon,are a significant factor in the salmon’s decline. It is difficult to justify how 4% predation by sea lions is “out of control,” if a much higher rate of human predation is acceptable.

MYTH:
vi. Wildlife officials have tried everything else, and now they simply have no alternative. This myth is widely reported in the mainstream media, and it goes something like this: They have tried hazing, and it did not have any impact. They need to kill sea lions on the river, because there is no other way to protect the salmon.

FACT: As long as salmon fishing is still allowed in the Columbia and in the oceans in which the salmon live for most of their lives, officials have not tried everything else. As long as anglers can kill more than 4,000 fish in four days, as they did between April 1 and April 4 of 2009, they have not tried everything else. As long as gill nets are allowed on the Columbia, they have not tried everything else. And indeed, the goal of this proposal is to reduce sea lion predation from a high of 4% of the run down to 1% of the run. At the same time, the very same wildlife officials
increased fishing limits from 9% of the run in 2007 to 12% in 2008, to 13% in 2009, so that the number of salmon allegedly saved by killing sea lions is offset by the increase in the number of salmon killed by fishermen. But it is not only fishermen who are to blame for this crisis. As long as there are dams with poorly designed fish ladders blocking off thousands of miles of habitat, and chewing up fish in the turbines, they cannot reasonably say they have tried everything. Regarding the hazing, contrary to media mythology, the sea lions actually have been responding to these measures. Sea lion predation at the dam IS being addressed with non-lethal harassment that is having some effect. If it is not as effective as we might like, well neither are the measures taken to regulate water flow and quality, to restore habitat, and to solve the problem of dams blocking natal streams as effective as we would like. But they ARE addressing predation just like they need to be addressing these other factors. And these other factors are the real threats to salmon recovery.

MYTH:
vii. Officials are working to find placements for sea lions in zoos or other accommodations. They will try everything they can before resorting to killing sea lions. They are going to trap them, and once trapped, the animals will be held for at least 48 hours, while they try to find placements for them. If they cannot find placements, only then will they resort to humane euthanasia.

FACT: There have been few commitments from facilities to accept any sea lions. Only a small fraction of these animals is expected to be placed. Officials have conceded that they will probably not be able to trap more than about 15 animals out of the projected 85 that they could kill each year. They say it is too difficult to trap them because it would be too difficult to get the targeted animals to do haul out into the traps at the right time. Even if they could trap them, the likelihood of any facility stepping forward to accept more than about 10 of the targeted sea lions is remote. Oregon Zoo director Tony Vecchio voted in favor of killing sea lions, but even his facility has not stepped forward to accept any animals. Most of the
sea lions will not be relocated. Rather than trapping the animals, officials granted permission for shooters to kill the sea lions in the water. They said that they would close the area to any observers during this time, since the spectacle would be sure to be bloody and difficult to justify. They do not want any witnesses. Sea lions are sure to be wounded, and to suffer if this plan is allowed to proceed. There is nothing “humane” about what has been proposed, and this is not “euthanasia.” This is killing. This is shooting to death gregarious, amiable animals for what amounts to no reason at all. There is no scientific evidence to support the assertion that killing these animals will help the salmon in any way whatsoever.

MYTH:
viii. But they have evidence! A scientific panel of experts determined that this was the only sensible course of action. Who are we to question them? We might not like it, but obviously, if the experts are
saying that this is the only way, then it must be the only way.

FACT: Actually, this panel was stacked. Almost all of the members of the Pinniped-Fishery Interaction Task Force were heavily tied to the sport, commercial, and/or tribal fishing industry. The one and only member of the panel to vote against the proposal was also one of the only members whose personal and financial self-interests were not served by killing or capturing sea lions.

MYTH:
ix. Those who are against killing sea lions are simply not being reasonable. They are allowing themselves to be swayed by emotional reasoning. Because the sea lions are cuter than the salmon, they are being irrational about this. But good, hard, scientific facts support killing sea lions, in order to save the salmon.

FACT: In fact, the good, hard, scientific evidence does not support killing sea lions. Quite the contrary. There is no indication that killing sea lions would help the salmon situation. There is no
scientific support whatsoever that removing a natural predator is beneficial to any ecosystem or any of the inhabitants of that ecosystem. In addition, there is at least as much irrationality and emotional vitriol going on in support of killing sea lions as is going on in opposition to it. Those whose livelihoods and entertainment
depend upon the fishing industry are fast and loose with propaganda. But it is both irrational and unreasonable to demand that sea lions be killed to save salmon when all the evidence suggests that sea lions are not the detrimental factor to the salmon, and the government itself has admitted that they cannot reliably estimate a reduction in predation or consequent increase to fish survival from removing 85 sea lions each year. The proposal to harm sea lions arose out of politics and financial interests, not out of any real scientific evidence; There is no such evidence.

MYTH:
x. Saving salmon depends upon removing sea lions. There is just no other way to save the salmon. We must choose between salmon and sea lions. If we are to save the salmon, we must support this proposal.

FACT: This is a false choice. Salmon and sea lions have co-evolved for thousands of years, as part of a healthy ecosystem. Besides eating salmon, sea lions also eat crappie, bass, pikeminnows, and other species that would otherwise either prey on salmon, or would out-compete salmon for food. Therefore, like all large predators, sea lions provide a vital service to the ecosystem, keeping this bio-region in balance. Removing sea lions could mean an increase in pikeminnow, throwing that system out of balance.
In point of fact, non-native, invasive, and introduced species like bass and crappie have been demonstrated to be one of the greatest obstacles toward salmon recovery. They have a much larger impact upon salmon than do sea lions. (See, for example, .) Some of these fish were introduced here by the same interests that are now advocating the killing of sea lions to “save” the salmon. Since fishermen like to catch bass, they are not pointing fingers in that direction, but instead at natural, native sea lions.
Removing a natural predator has never been beneficial to any ecosystem, and has never been an effective means of saving a prey species. There are many other factors in the decline of the salmon, which need to be addressed. Killing sea lions does not address any of the true factors that are causing the salmon to move toward extinction. Thus, killing sea lions would only serve as a time- and resource-wasting smokescreen. It is projected that the lethal removal of sea lions from the Columbia will cost in excess of $2 million. This money will be wasted on a program that will not save salmon, and will harm natural, native species. These are resources better spent elsewhere — perhaps on redesigning fish passage through the dams, restoring habitat, and addressing over-fishing. While sea lions are being scapegoated for the decline of the salmon population,
time, energy, and resources that could have been spent addressing the real culprits in the crisis will be squandered. In spite of the enormous expenditure of taxpayer funds that this program is projected
to cost, there is no indication that it will be successful by any measure. Similar programs in the past, for example the sanctioned killing of harbor seals in the river prior to 1972, were not successful, and did not result in any benefit. Even wildlife officials are dubious about whether killing sea lions will have any positive
benefit for the salmon. They cannot provide any numbers regarding the impact they expect to have with this plan, and they concede that the sea lions that are killed will only be replaced by other predators to
fill this vacant niche — either other California sea lions, or other species. This proposal harms both sea lions AND salmon, because it would mean suffering for sea lions, and it would divert attention and energy away from any real solutions to the salmon crisis, and scapegoating sea lions would distract from the real culprits.

MYTH:
xi. Sea lions are becoming overly aggressive. They have lost their fear of humans, and are therefore dangerous. They are jumping into boats and might attack people.

FACT: It is humans, and not sea lions, who are demonstrating that they are overly aggressive. Fishermen, who are in the sea lions’ natural habitat, taking all of the sea lions’ natural prey, are also shooting sea lions. Several dead sea lions washed ashore last year with bullet wounds in them, and others were spotted as they swam in the river or lay on the docks bleeding from bullet wounds. (Still others are injured by fishing tackle, or by becoming entangled in nets.) A Ranier man was cited last year after he shot a sea lion in the river, but most are not caught or sanctioned for this. In fact, more than a thousand sea lions are killed by humans every year, either intentionally or unintentionally. Humans killed so many sea
lions prior to 1972 that they nearly drove them to extinction. No sea lion has ever killed a human on the Columbia in all of recorded history. Now, humans want permission to shoot and kill even more sea lions. This does not sound like aggressive sea lions, it sounds like aggressive people. While sea lions are amiable and gregarious, and therefore do not seem to resent human company as much as some species, they have not “lost their fear of humans.” On the contrary, humans have lost their sense of reason around sea lions. Sea lions are, in fact, wild animals, and deserve the appropriate respect that should be afforded to any wild animal. But any stroll along the docks where they haul out will show that humans are quite willing to walk right up to 500 lb sea lions, happily snapping pictures or shooing them off the docks. Even so, bites by sea lions are extremely rare. According to most sources, there have been fewer than a dozen attacks by sea
lions on the west coast in the past century. A human is more likely to be killed by a squid, or a neighbor’s dog, than by a sea lion. In fact, a human is many, many times more likely to be killed by another human than by a sea lion. While sea lions are generally quite tolerant of humans coming into their territory and eating their fish, the same cannot be said for humans. Any time a wild animal comes near human habitations, it seems that wildlife managers want to kill the animal, to “protect” the humans. While sea lions have been known to try to haul out into peoples’ boats, they do this to warm themselves, and not to attack humans. Sea lions are not going around attacking people. This is pure propaganda, driven by hysteria. Often, this appeal to fear is made by the very people who claim that those who oppose the plan to kill sea lions are just being overly emotional.

MYTH:
xii. We need to try anything and there is no reason not to give this a shot. It might not work to save the salmon, but it won’t hurt anything to at least try.

FACT: We are, indeed, at a point where we must make the tough choices that will be necessary to save the salmon. We must address the factors that are really causing the salmon to decline, and must not waste time and resources going after false solutions. Breaching some dams and redesigning fish passage through others will not be easy, but it is what we must do if we really care about the salmon. Curbing human predation will also not be easy, as the fishing industry is an important facet of the NW economy. However, if we care about salmon as much as we say we do, then it is time to stop the gill nets, time to severely limit fishing on this river and in the ocean to give the wild salmon a chance to recover. But, far from “not hurting anything to try,” the proposal to kill sea lions would cause a great deal of harm. First, it would harm sea lions. Sea lions are intelligent animals capable of experiencing pain if we inflict it upon them. Shooting them in the water would cause a great deal of pain, suffering, and harm to those sea lions that are targeted. This proposal would also harm salmon, by focusing energy and resources on measures that will not address the real problems. Finally, this proposal would harm the people who have come to know and care about individual sea lions on the river. Many people who live along this river enjoy the wildlife here, and would feel great pain at the idea of any of these animals being shot. It is also likely that the killing of sea lions could cause harm to the entire ecosystem, since so many natural and important predators have already been removed or greatly reduced, throwing the system out of balance. Biologists and other scientists are increasingly discovering that large predators play a surprising, and extremely important role in every bio-region in the world, and removing them has almost always caused unexpected and often
irreversible havoc.

MYTH:
xiii. Well, even if the sea lions are not to blame for the salmon crisis, they’re killing off all of the breeding stock to our very important, and very endangered, sturgeon population.

FACT: The California sea lions who are targeted under this plan are not to blame here, either. The NMFS itself has determined that it is not California sea lions who are preying on the sturgeon. According to the NMFS, 98 percent of the predation of sturgeon is by Steller sea lions, not California sea lions. Steller sea lions are are, themselves, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, so
they cannot be killed, and will not be addressed under this plan. If you have seen a sea lion eating a sturgeon in the river, rest assured that it is a Steller sea lion, and not one of the California sea lions being targeted with this proposal. So, even if the plan goes forward, it will do nothing to stop predation on sturgeon. Further, Steller sea lions are actually quite responsive to hazing on the river, so there is no reason to resort to lethal removal plans to address this situation.

Last year:

The trapping program began on 4/24/2008. A court injunction temporarily barred killing any of the sea lions, but officials commenced with trapping and removal. They had slots for 19 animals in zoos across the country, which is probably the maximum that we can expect to ever be placed. They trapped 7 targeted sea lions. One of these died in captivity, in the middle of a botched medical exam. (While it was widely reported in the media that the animal simply died because he was too fat, in reality the necropsy report determined that sea lion B198 died because he was kept under anesthesia for too long.)

On 5/4/2008, six sea lions were found dead in two of the traps. There were five adult sea lions and one pup. Of these, four were California sea lions, and two were endangered Steller sea lions. Initial reports made it clear that the animals had been shot to death. Brian Gorman, of NMFS stated, for example, that the animals had been shot and that there was a “great deal of blood in both traps.” He was still telling
the media that the sea lions had been shot, specifically with a ?high powered rifle, two days after the killings, and after the bodies had been thoroughly examined. It was not until 5/7/2008, three full days after the killings, that officials began to tell the media that they were not shot after all. The following week, they announced that the sea lions all simply died of heat stroke. Given that the temperatures never reached 60 degrees during the time that the animals could have been in the traps, and given that sea lions routinely haul out onto the rocks in hot, summer weather, and lay there for 8 to 10 hours per day, it is highly unlikely that all six animals could have died of heat stroke in such mild temperatures, in such a short period of time.
According to officials, only one animal had any visible injury, and this was a shallow puncture wound, consistent with a bite from another animal. None of the others had bite marks, though importantly, three
of the six animals had shrapnel from old gunshots in their bodies. These were not inflicted on the day of the killings, but were from past encounters with fishermen. (That is, 50 percent of this random sample of sea lions had bullet fragments in their bodies from previous injuries. Clearly, it is not the sea lions demonstrating escalating aggression here.)