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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2018
Sea lion relocation fails to protect fish at Willamette Falls
Dumped in
Newport, sea
lions return
‘Clearly our experience
on the Willamette River
this year demonstrated
the futility of relocating
sea lions…’
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
The Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife says its latest
attempt to discourage savvy
sea lions from feasting on
native fish at Willamette Falls
has proven to be an exercise in
futility.
The agency reports more
than 25 California sea lions
and Steller sea lions continue
to prey on salmon, steelhead,
sturgeon and lamprey at the
falls between West Linn and
Oregon City.
The state spent five weeks
in February and March relo-
cating 10 California sea lions
to a beach south of Newport,
only to see the animals return
within four to six days. One
of the sea lions was even cap-
tured and relocated to the coast
twice, but swam back both
times.
Shaun Clements, senior
policy adviser with the Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife,
said the problem is becom-
ing increasingly dire as Upper
Willamette Basin steelhead are
pushed to the brink of extinc-
tion. This year’s run stands
at 1,338 steelhead — slightly
higher than 2017, but far below
historic steelhead returns that
often topped 10,000 fish.
Biologists estimate that
California sea lions ate at least
Shaun Clements
ODFW senior policy adviser
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is struggling to manage a surging popula-
tion of sea lions that continues to prey on fish at Willamette Falls.
18 percent of returning adult
steelhead prior to March. The
Department of Fish and Wild-
life applied in October to kill
sea lions from Willamette
Falls under the Marine Mam-
mal Protection Act in order to
protect threatened salmon and
steelhead. Clements said they
are still awaiting a final deci-
sion from the National Marine
Fisheries Service.
“It’s our responsibility and
mandate from the people of
Oregon to ensure these fish
runs continue,” Clements said.
“So it’s incredibly frustrating
to us that federal laws prevent
us from taking the only steps
effective at protecting these
fish from predation.”
To be clear, Clements said
predation is not the only thing
harming fish in the Willamette
Basin. Drought and opera-
tions at 13 federal dams have
also had a sharp impact on the
species’ survival. But unless
wildlife managers are able to
cull sea lions, Clements said
all other actions to protect fish
will not matter in the long run.
For example, the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers
intends to build a 300-foot-
tall water temperature control
tower and floating screen at
Detroit Dam on the North San-
tiam River to improve fish sur-
vival. The project is estimated
to cost between $100 million
and $250 million, and could
require draining Detroit Lake
for up to two years, leaving
farmers without critical irriga-
tion supplies.
All that work would be for
naught if sea lions are left to
eat the fish to extinction, Cle-
ments said.
“Clearly our experience on
the Willamette River this year
demonstrated the futility of
relocating sea lions as a way
Buehler looks to November as
some question his conservatism
By JEFF MAPES
Oregon Public Broadcasting
State Rep. Knute Buehler is
already focused on a potential
fall election matchup against
Democratic Gov. Kate Brown.
His TV advertising focuses
on attacking the governor
and makes no mention of his
Republican affiliation. And on
the surface, the May 15 GOP
primary might seem like an
afterthought for Buehler. He
is the only Republican to raise
serious money for his cam-
paign — more than $3.1 mil-
lion at last count — and he
has a long list of establishment
endorsers.
But you don’t have to spend
much time in Oregon Republi-
can circles to pick up discon-
tent among party conserva-
tives when it comes to their
likely nominee. Pro-life activ-
ists are unhappy that Bue-
hler describes himself as pro-
choice. Fans of President
Donald Trump are upset that
he’s criticized Trump on sev-
eral occasions. And gun-rights
activists are angry that Buehler
recently voted for a bill further
tightening Oregon’s gun laws.
Sometimes the criticism
leveled at Buehler goes way
beyond Ronald Reagan’s old
dictum about never speaking
ill of a fellow Republican.
“If you want Knute, we
might as well just keep Kate, in
my opinion,” said Carol Leek,
founder of Oregon Women for
Trump, after hearing Buehler
speak at the annual Dorchester
Conference for GOP activists.
Buehler’s campaign team
remains confident of victory
in the Republican primary. But
there are 10 candidates in the
race and two of them in par-
ticular — retired Navy avia-
tor Greg Wooldridge and Bend
businessman Sam Carpenter
— appear to be mounting the
strongest challenges.
To succeed this election
year, Buehler must navigate
the shoals of the Republican
Party primary, where the elec-
torate tends to be more conser-
vative, while making sure he
doesn’t say or do anything that
hurts his chances in the fall.
That was on display at a
recent meeting of the Port-
land-based Executive Club.
Members see themselves as
the libertarian resistance to
left-wing Portland. The evils of
light rail, urban planning and
taxes are among their favorite
topics.
At a recent meeting, they
flung a series of tough ques-
tions at Buehler. One man
asked Buehler if he would
pledge right then not to sign
any bill that raises taxes or puts
more controls on firearms.
“I won’t make those kinds
of pledges,” Buehler replied.
“I think they are just too com-
plex, too many issues on the
table.”
But, Buehler told his listen-
ers, “your gun rights are safe
with me.”
Buehler noted that while
he voted for a bill to tighten
gun possession laws regard-
ing domestic abusers, he also
opposed measures to expand
background checks and to
allow judges to temporarily
remove the gun rights of some-
one deemed at “extreme risk”
of violence.
And he said the state should
be focused on efficiencies —
such as lowering the cost of
the state pension system —
instead of raising taxes.
Buehler told another ques-
tioner that he wasn’t famil-
iar with a proposed initiative
that would prohibit state fund-
ing of abortion for low-in-
come women. But he said he
opposed state funding except
in cases where it is “medically
necessary.”
Kerry Tymchuk, a for-
mer aide to U.S. Sen. Gordon
Smith, said Buehler is seeking
to find a formula that allows
him to appeal to the nearly
three-quarters of registered
voters in Oregon who are not
Republicans.
“As a Republican in Ore-
gon, you have to thread the
needle,” Tymchuk said. “You
start off with so many strikes
against you.”
He described Buehler’s big-
gest challenge this way: “Not
saying anything that will make
him unelectable in November.”
Buehler has long charted
his own way in life and poli-
tics. The son of a Roseburg
butcher and a homemaker, he
was the first in his family to go
to college. He went to medi-
cal school and also studied in
England as a Rhodes Scholar.
He became an orthopedic sur-
geon with a thriving practice in
Bend.
He first got involved in pol-
itics working on Texas billion-
aire Ross Perot’s third-party
presidential campaign in 1992.
Then he dabbled in the unsuc-
cessful effort to create a Per-
ot-inspired party to challenge
the Democratic-Republican
duopoly.
“I’m
an
indepen-
dent-minded guy,” he told one
questioner at the Executive
Club who asked his opinion of
President Trump, “and I don’t
believe in blind loyalty to any-
body but my wife.”
“I’m not interested in pass-
ing anyone’s personal litmus
test or anyone’s single vot-
ing criteria,” Buehler added in
a subsequent interview. “I’m
interested in fixing the big
problems of Oregon that have
been avoided or made worse.”
Buehler insisted that he
could still get a lot done even if
Democrats continue to control
the Legislature. “I have a lot of
friends on the Democratic side
of the aisle,” he said. He noted
that some of the most popu-
lar governors in the country
are Republicans in blue states
like Massachusetts, Vermont
and Maryland who are adept at
building bipartisan coalitions.
Buehler’s willingness to
work with Democrats hasn’t
always endeared him to the
“far right or the core Republi-
can base,” said state Rep. Rich-
ard Vial, R-Scholls, a Buehler
supporter.
of stopping them from driving
our native fish runs to extinc-
tion,” Clements said.
Since President Rich-
ard Nixon signed the Marine
Mammal Protection Act in
1972, Clements said the pop-
ulation of California sea lions
has grown from around 70,000
to 300,000, and the Steller
sea lion population has also
increased from roughly 30,000
to 70,000.
With
the
population
increase has come more sea
lions to prey on freshwater fish
runs in the Pacific Northwest.
It started in the late 1980s at
Ballard Locks in Seattle, Cle-
ments said, and by the 2000s
sea lions had arrived at Willa-
mette Falls.
Steelhead aren’t the only
fish species at risk, Clements
said.
“We also know that pre-
dation on white sturgeon has
increased dramatically this
year, and that sea lions are
preying on salmon, steelhead
and sturgeon in other rivers
like the Sandy and Clacka-
mas,” he said.
Clements said changes are
needed to the law that would
allow wildlife managers to be
more proactive when it comes
to dealing with sea lions. He
said the Department of Fish
and Wildlife is working with
Oregon’s congressional dele-
gation on a possible solution.
In the meantime, the agency
has decided to shift its focus to
controlling sea lions at Bon-
neville Dam on the Columbia
River, where they already have
authorization to kill sea lions.
The state does plan to leave
its sea lion traps at Willamette
Falls while continuing to mon-
itor predation, but simply does
not have enough staff to cover
both locations.
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