{"id":336948,"date":"2025-12-08T13:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T13:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/336948\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T13:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T13:06:10","slug":"sea-lions-keep-eating-the-salmon-in-the-columbia-river-some-lawmakers-want-to-kill-more-of-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/336948\/","title":{"rendered":"Sea lions keep eating the salmon in the Columbia River. Some lawmakers want to kill more of them"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pacific Northwest sea lions<\/a> got the spotlight in a Congressional hearing last week.<\/p>\n

The U.S. House of Representatives\u2019 Committee on Natural Resources spent nearly two and a half hours Wednesday debating the long-standing issue of the Columbia River sea lions, who are known to feast on the salmon<\/a> that swim down and upriver. <\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t great news for the sea lions, as the debate centered primarily around how best to kill the pinnipeds. <\/p>\n

The hearing featured testimony from Aja DeCoteau<\/a>, executive director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fishing Commission, who urged the committee to expand efforts to remove the animals and research the problem, The Columbian reported<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cHistorically, our elders remember an occasional sea lion reaching Celilo Falls,\u201d DeCoteau said at the hearing. \u201cHowever, these occurrences were rare. Now, a combination of hydro-system infrastructure, changing environmental conditions and the success of the Marine Mammal Protection Act has resulted in unprecedented numbers of sea lions in the Columbia River.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, state wildlife managers have sought ways to keep sea lions from gobbling up salmon. Exclusion gates have been installed at the entrances to fish ladders. Sea lions have been hazed with underwater explosives and firecracker shells fired from shotguns. Agencies have tried using fake orcas<\/a> and arm-flailing inflatables<\/a>. Animals that have been trapped and relocated, driven hundreds of miles and released into the ocean, have returned upriver within days.<\/p>\n

In 2008, Oregon was given permission to kill some of the sea lions, though officials were required to capture and brand individual animals, and catch them in the act of consuming salmon, before they could euthanize. <\/p>\n

The frustrated efforts led to a 2020 federal law that permitted Oregon, Washington and Idaho, as well as some tribes, to bypass the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, allowing them to trap and kill up to 540 California sea lions and 176 Steller sea lions from the Columbia River and its tributaries. <\/p>\n

In the five years since, only 230 total sea lions have been killed.<\/p>\n

While the 2020 federal permit to kill the sea lions was renewed without controversy<\/a> this September, extending the law through 2030, lawmakers are now examining how effective the legislative efforts have actually been. <\/p>\n

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez<\/a>, a Democrat who represents Washington\u2019s 3rd Congressional District, which runs along the lower Columbia River, sat in on the Congressional committee Wednesday, asking why more sea lions haven\u2019t been killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsk yourself, why are these numbers so small?\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Gluesenkamp Perez argued the removal process is arduous and expensive, estimating the cost of removing one sea lion at $38,000, or roughly $203 per salmon saved.<\/p>\n

She recommended expanding the reach of the permits and suggested a process that would allow local fisherman and tribal members to bid on permits to assist with sea lion killings. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have seen and heard firsthand how much work goes into managing sea lion populations and preserving local fisheries,\u201d she added. \u201cAs the name implies, sea lions are a species that belong in the sea, not in our rivers.\u201d <\/p>\n

Larry Phillips, policy director for the American Sportfishing Association, who also testified before the committee Wednesday, said he thought people would \u201cline up\u201d to participate in sea lion removals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also think that we need to be really careful, make sure we\u2019re investing in good science to monitor the outcomes of any type of programs that we implement or decide to implement, and that\u2019s that clearly is going to be the foundation of how we move forward,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cBut you know, I would certainly support being creative and coming up with unique ideas.\u201d <\/p>\n

Killing sea lions in the Pacific Northwest has long been a contentious issue. A 2023 video<\/a> of a fishing boat repeatedly charging large groups of sea lions demonstrated the animosity many fishers feel toward sea lions, though it shocked even fellow anglers, who condemned the act of aggression toward the animals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pacific Northwest sea lions got the spotlight in a Congressional hearing last week. The U.S. House of Representatives\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[169919,169920,2160,169921,192,169922,169923,5225,79,148199],"class_list":["post-336948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-bobby-begay","tag-bonneville-dam","tag-controversy","tag-critfc","tag-environment","tag-hazing","tag-predation","tag-salmon","tag-science","tag-sea-lions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}