Posted by Checkyourrealty at 4/24/08 12:12 p.m.

Dem boys are tasty. Trap them? then when they show back up to desimate the fish then what? Oh that's right trap them, then again when they show back up. See a pattern here. Take them out.

Posted by Chawfreak at 4/24/08 12:59 p.m.

Stop listening to these cry babies. Shoot them before the salmon are gone.

Posted by idontcare at 4/24/08 1:21 p.m.

Shoot them and give them to the poor. I think a lot of the PETA crazies don't understand that Dams actually encourage the congregation of sea lions since it focres all the salmon into a small area for easy hunting.

Killing a few sea lions isn't going to hurt their population.

These are the same nutjobs you won't let King County kill the canadian geese. Killing 5,000 of 50,000 isn't going to control the geese population. If we could only use geese feces to power our cars.....

Posted by Concerned_Citizen at 4/24/08 2:01 p.m.

I'm sure that the 'enviros' would like to tear down all the dams on the Columbia river. These 14 dams put out 24,000 Megawatts of clean, renewable, sustaining power.

It would take at least 25 Coal-Fired Power Plants to equal the power output.

Alternatively, we could install about 1,000,000,000 80- watt solar panels.

Posted by unregistered user at 4/24/08 2:36 p.m.

Sea Lions are like Seagulls or rats. Trash eating, annoying, over consuming overpopulated sea vermin.

Why do we have to appease these PETA cultists?
KILL THEM (the sealions, that is, not the PETA people)
How much more does this cost? Who is going to pay for it? PETA? heck no.
Bullets in a high powered rifle are about 2.00 each.
trapping a sea rat is going to be well over 10K

GOVERNMENT WASTE

Posted by groovyjoker at 4/24/08 5:09 p.m.

Strange comments...

First, all the government agencies agree that removal by lethal means would be a last resort. Trap and removal, or other methods of non-lethal deterrance, would be tried first.

If this did not work, removal of individual seals by lethal means would be attempted.

Sea lions should be managed carefully. They are not trash. Sea lions are food for orcas and sharks.

Consider how often we get ourselves into a situation where we have to kill animals to manage them:

1) Golf courses and geese
2) Human created sand spits and salmon-eating birds (terns) that nest on them
3) Destruction of forests that support one owl (barred), forcing it to migrate into the forests of another owl (spotted), displacing it.
4) Building of dams that create pools where salmon congregate, perfect for bears, eagles, herons, gulls, and sea lions (not to mention some fishermen)
5) Landfills, the coyote and the raven

You can probably think of more examples, but is the problem tree-huggers, government, or maybe we just need to plan a little bit better - think ahead a little bit longer - wonder a little bit more about the consequences of our actions?

Posted by Drais4 at 4/25/08 10:22 a.m.

I have to agree with Kurt Beardslee that this is distraction. The Snake River dams wipe out 85 to 90 percent of the salmon that spawn above them, before those juveniles ever get to the Columbia dams. And yet NOAA is anxious about the 4 percent of the fish eaten by sea lions?
As for Concerned Citizen, there probably are some "enviros" who want to remove all dams. But the ones I know can distinguish between the lower Snake dams, which provide a small fraction of NW power and zero flood control and minimal irrigation, from the mainstem Columbia dams, which are qualitatively different. Removing the Snake dams actually provides a net economic benefit, even if you don't care about fish. That's just not true for the mainstem Columbia dams.

Posted by notgreen/notbrown at 4/25/08 12:01 p.m.

Drais is exactly right. I'm definately not an enviro, I grew up in Idaho, and it always amazed me how, even in a bad year, the commercial and sport fishing would continue on the columbia and Idaho would have to shut down to protect the few remaining fish to spawn. Less than 1% of the smolts released make it back. The one thing he left out that bothers me, is the number of nets you see in the Columbia from the mouth of the Yakima in the Tri-cities to Portland. How can that not be just as big an issue?

Posted by mikeyb12 at 4/28/08 12:52 p.m.

notgreen/brown, nets, you can't say anything bad about the nets /\ you know. The native americans have their rights as provided by treaty.

Posted by unregistered user at 4/29/08 7:17 p.m.

Please stop scapegoating sea lions. Hate to blow the stereotypes of the bizarre folks who are posting here, but I'm not now, nor have I ever been a member of PETA. Rather, I'm an educated person who has been on this river for a long time, and I can promise you that all the science supports the sea lions in this. It's not their fault that the salmon are declining. It's ours. The Depts of fish and wildlife in both Oregon and Washington have a huge conflict of interest here: They get their funding through selling fishing and hunting tags. Yet they're charged with managing our wildlife? You don't see a problem there? Very simply, the problem is this: We are killing too many salmon. Commercial, sport, and tribal fishermen are killing way too many salmon -- far more than the sea lions. The dams are killing way too many salmon -- far more than the sea lions. If we think blaming sea lions will be enough to salvage the situation, we are sadly mistaken. You can't kill 60 to 75 percent of the fish with dams, and another 10 to 20 percent of the fish with nets and rods, and expect that screaming about sea lions daring to eat 0.2 to 4 percent of the fish is going to help.

By the way, why not show pictures of greasy fat guys chowing down on salmon at barbecues, or maybe show smiling fishermen gutting their catch near the docks, to go along with the pictures you keep showing of sea lions eating salmon on the river? Face it: We ALL eat the salmon, not just the sea lions. The trouble is, they were here first. Before there was a dam, there was Celilo falls, and the sea lions came there to eat salmon while they congregated below the falls. And yet there were still millions of salmon on the river. The salmon did not start to decline till we came into this region and began exterminating both the salmon and the sea lions. So please give the "PETA" chants and anti-sea lion hysteria a rest. The facts all point to only one culprit in the decline of the salmon: It's us. Not the sea lions. Us.