LEWISTON, Idaho — An aerial survey of marine mammals in the lower Columbia River found spring Chinook salmon will have to make it past more than 6,000 hungry harbor seals, 1,500 California sea lions and 100 Steller sea lions.
The marine mammals are drawn into the river this time of year to take advantage of a large smelt run, but they will switch to spring Chinook by spring.
“We have more sea lions than ever in the Columbia, and they are there when endangered salmon and steelhead are there, and the smelt they are eating are endangered as well,” said Steve Jefferies of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife told The Lewiston Tribune.
A study last year indicated as much as 40 percent of the spring and summer chinook run that enters the Columbia River disappears.
State fisheries managers have applied for and gotten permits to lethally remove some of the sea lions. But doing so has been controversial. Over the past six years, about 50 animals have been killed.
A bill before Congress sponsored by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., and Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., would amend existing law and make it easier for states and treaty Indian tribes to kill problem sea lions.
Under the legislation, Washington, Oregon and Idaho, along with the Nez Perce, Yakama, Warm Springs and Umatilla tribes, would each be able to secure a lethal take permit and remove as many as 10 animals each and a maximum of 92 among all the agencies.
When the Marine Mammal Act was written, nobody envisioned it would be as successful as it has been, said Doug Hatch of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. He said there were only about 30,000 sea lions at the time. Now, estimates put the population at 350,000.
“The act protects them at all costs and doesn’t really predict a point where there is going to be a time where we start managing (the population), and that is where we are at now,” Hatch said.
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