Court Spares Salmon-Scarfing Sea Lions
Posted on: Friday, 25 April 2008, 12:00 CDT
The on-again, off-again permission for Oregon and Washington officials to kill salmon-gobbling sea lions below Bonneville Dam is off again, courtesy of a federal appeals court injunction issued Wednesday.
However, the appeals court said state officials could still capture sea lions and ship them to zoos. Oregon officials said they will begin trapping up to eight of the Bonneville animals today.
The sea lions gather at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River to feast on salmon, including imperiled species, gathering to climb the dam's fish ladder. Frustrated fishermen and biologists fear the animals' appetite is cutting into billion-dollar efforts to restore Northwest salmon.
Roughly 25 to 30 sea lions have stationed themselves at the dam, but as many as 60 -- a new record -- gathered there a few weeks ago, said Brian Gorman of the National Marine Fisheries Service. He said the sea lions eat a total of 50 to 100 adult chinook salmon a day.
The Fisheries Service authorized the states to kill sea lions if they could not find other homes for them.
But the Humane Society of the United States, the Wild Fish Conservancy and two individuals went to court to block the killing. A judge in Portland last week turned them down and gave the go-ahead to take out the animals if necessary.
But the groups took their case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which on Wednesday issued an injunction blocking any killing. The judges scheduled a hearing in the case for May 8 in Pasadena, Calif.
The judges explained that if no sea lions are removed this year, they might consume between 212 and 2,094 spring chinook salmon protected by the Endangered Species Act, according to federal estimates. The 2008 salmon run is expected to be 269,000 fish, they said.
The killing of sea lions is, "by definition, irreparable," the judges said. However, they did not consider the loss of so few salmon to be irreparable harm. So they agreed to halt the killing, but said they would expedite their handling of the case.
State teams had planned all along to start out by capturing sea lions and had no immediate plans to kill any regardless of what the courts did, said Rick Hargrave of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
"In the short term, there isn't a significant impact on our plan," he said Wednesday.
He said sea lions are already lazing on floating platforms that will serve as traps. The platforms have fences around them that biologists can close with a rope to capture the animals inside.
Trapped sea lions will be shipped first to Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma, which can handle only eight at a time. From there, assuming they pass health checks, the sea lions will be transferred to other facilities such as Sea World.
He said the plan was for any sea lions that are rejected for health or other reasons to be killed. He was not sure what would happen to them given Wednesday's court order.
Source: The Oregonian
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