The state of Oregon spent $130 million on "fish ladders" to help endangered salmon migrate past the Bonneville Dam. However, area sea lions see this as an all you can eat buffet!
"We've been hazing the sea lions with pyrotechnics and we're getting rubber bullets for shotguns. If they don't stay out of the fishways, we'll have to escalate it to that point," said Robert Stansell, a biologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Portland.
The sea lions are protected under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. That means even if the California sea lions were to eat enough salmon to reduce the fish's numbers to zero, state and federal officials could not resort to lethal means -- at least without years of paperwork. Don't you just have to chuckle when people get stuck in their own red tape?
The situation has placed wildlife officials in the awkward position of protecting an endangered species from a federally protected species. This has led some to suggest it may be time to amend the 1972 protection act to allow officials more leeway when it comes to managing the now-abundant California sea lion. Kill the sea lions!
Others, meanwhile, denounce any suggestion to weaken the protection act, since they say the problem is caused by man-made dams, not sea lions. Kill the people!
In the meantime, the Army Corps of Engineers is planning to install a fairly basic defense in the Bonneville Dam's fish ladders -- bars. Do sea lions drink?
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