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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (May 28, 2018)
3A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, MAY 28, 2018 Sea lions continue to eat endangered fish Proposed bill supported by Northwest lawmakers By GEORGE PLAVEN Capital Press All the time, money and sacrifice to improve salmon and steelhead passage in the Willamette River won’t mean a thing unless wildlife man- agers can get rid of sea lions feasting on the fish at Willa- mette Falls. That was the message Tues- day from Shaun Clements, senior policy adviser for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, who met at the falls with Liz Hamilton, exec- utive director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Asso- ciation, and Suzanne Kunse, district director for U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore. The group watched as sev- eral sea lions patrolled the waterfalls and nearby fish lad- ders. Clements said there could be as many as 50 to 60 sea lions in the area on any given day in April or early May, and the animals are responsible for eating roughly 20 percent of this year’s already paltry win- ter steelhead run. As of May 22, ODFW has counted just 2,086 winter steelhead at Willamette Falls. That’s less than half of the 10-year average and 22 per- cent of the 50-year average. ODFW applied in Octo- ber 2017 to kill sea lions from Willamette Falls under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, though Clements said he does not expect a deci- sion from the National Marine Fisheries Service until the end of the year. The department also tried relocating 10 California sea lions to a beach south of New- port earlier this year, only to see the animals return in just six days. Meanwhile, the U.S. Army George Plaven/Capital Press Sea lions continue to prey on salmon and steelhead at Willamette Falls in Oregon. “Certainly for winter steelhead, if we don’t deal with (sea lions), whatever we do in the upper basin isn’t going to help.” Shaun Clements Senior policy advisor for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife enough fish can even make it past the falls. “Certainly for winter steel- head, if we don’t deal with (sea lions), whatever we do in the upper basin isn’t going to help,” Clements said. “If you’re managing other sectors, you have to manage sea lions as well.” Schrader is co-sponsoring legislation to provide greater Corps of Engineers is propos- ing to build a water tempera- ture control tower and floating fish screen at Detroit Dam far- ther up the Willamette Basin to aid salmon and steelhead sur- vival, a project that could cost up to $250 million and leave farmers without water in the reservoir for up to two years. But Clements said it would be a wasted investment if not flexibility for managing sea lions in the future. The Endan- gered Salmon and Fisher- ies Predation Prevention Act would extend the authority for killing sea lions that prey on endangered salmon and steel- head to states and tribes. The bill has support from a bipartisan group of Northwest lawmakers, including Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse of Washington, and Rep. Don Young of Alaska, all Republicans. Clements said the Marine Mammal Protection Act — which was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1972 — is too restrictive the way it is currently written, and forces wildlife managers to wait too long before they can apply for a lethal take permit to protect fish. “By that point, you’re already having a really bad impact,” he said. “We want to stop the habituation here.” Hamilton, with the North- west Sportfishing Industry Association, said she remem- bers fishing on the Willamette River and it would be a shock to see a single sea lion. The problem, Hamilton said, has really sprung over the last 10 years. It is especially problematic in places like Wil- lamette Falls, where fish are essentially bottled up trying to maneuver upstream to spawn. “Think about what the basin has done for these steelhead,” Hamilton said. “After 10 years of pretty heavy pounding from the sea lions, it’s all gone down the barrel.” If ODFW can have the tools to deal with sea lions more proactively, and not when steelhead runs are at the brink of extinction, she said they will have been successful. WANTED Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, WA Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500 My grandfather taught me how to respect power equipment. That’s important now in teaching my kids. NICK DAVIS GIVE DAD THE GIFT OF STIHL. FSA 56 BATTERY-POWERED TRIMMER 199 95 $ Includes AK 10 battery and AL 101 charger. “Light, powerful, long battery life. No gas! 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